by Meredith
The black panther loped along the trail, night eyes showing the way, nose up to catch another smell. In the darkest hours he caught it—a fire, used to keep a man without blankets warm. He followed it to the cave entrance.
He hesitated a moment, then let out the loudest roar he could.
He heard scurrying within, but saw nothing. He roared again and leapt to the entrance. Half a dozen steps back, Wilu crouched against a wall. He cringed and simpered.
Klandagi blocked the exit, but saw a hole at the back.
That gave him an idea. At the battleground Zeya had strictly prohibited the shedding of any Galayi blood. Klandagi considered himself exempt—he wasn’t a Galayi now, he was a panther. Intriguingly, he had other options.
Making sure his voice filled the cave, he said, “You hurt my friend. I want to kill you, which would be easy. But Zeya and Tsola”—amazing, I’m thinking of Zeya as one of our leaders—“say one Galayi can’t kill another.”
He pounced forward and raked his claws down Wilu’s arm.
Wilu whined.
“So,” Klandagi went on, “the traditional punishment for rape is banishment. You live alone the rest of your life, you see no one, you’re miserable. Very fitting, I think, worse than dying.
“I believe, though, that I won’t take you before the council for a formal trial. I’ll impose the sentence myself.”
Wilu spasmed visibly.
“Get on your hands and knees.”
Wilu didn’t move.
The panther swatted his face and drew a drizzle of blood. “Don’t try my patience. Get.”
Wilu did.
“Go into that hole.”
Wilu hesitated. Klandagi growled, and Wilu crawled forward.
The passage narrowed. Klandagi hoped it wouldn’t dead-end. Though Tsola knew the entire Cavern—she could picture parts she’d never seen in her mind—he didn’t.
Wilu emerged into a bigger space and half turned toward the cat, awaiting instructions.
This is delicious, thought Klandagi. Either way will be satisfying.
“Get going,” said Klandagi.
“It-it-it’s dark.”
“Perfectly dark,” said Klandagi happily. “Where we’re going, you’ll never see the light again.” He roared, and Wilu scrambled away.
“Stand up like a man,” Klandagi said. He realized that Wilu was so blind he couldn’t tell that this chamber was high enough.
Wilu obeyed.
“Turn very slowly in a circle.”
Wilu did.
“Stop. Walk straight ahead.”
Wilu fumbled his way forward. Klandagi knew how scary it was to be walking underground, in an unknown and unpredictable place, and be totally sightless. He’d heard every one of the medicine seekers talk about it. He’d turned himself into a man and experienced the total darkness of a cave. Terrifying.
From time to time he had to tell Wilu to turn a little to the left or right. He hoped this chamber was long. He wanted the bastard to have plenty of time to feel the panic. And he heard running water somewhere in front of them. That would be the place.
After a while, when it was obvious, Klandagi said, “You hear the water?”
“Yes.” The voice was a quaver.
“That’s one of our underground streams. This is where you’ll be spending the rest of your life.”
Wilu wailed.
The cat savored the horror Wilu must be feeling, and would feel.
Soon Klandagi said, “Stop.” Wilu did. “Kneel down.” Wilu did. “Reach a hand forward.”
Wilu put his hand in the water. “So you’ll have enough to drink. Unless we go a moon without rain and the stream dries up. I’ll bring food about once a week, unless I forget.”
“You’re going to leave me here?”
“Do you think you could get out by yourself?”
“No! No! No! No!” The voice was tremulous.
“Good. This is where you live until you grow old and go to the Darkening Land. If you call this living. You’ll never be able to see anything real, but don’t worry, your mind will provide pictures. Ants, bats, snakes, every manner of creature, real and imaginary. Your head will dream them up in bright color, day and night. Not that you’ll ever know day from night again. Your life will be a nightmare.” He let it sink in. “Good-bye now.”
Wilu screamed, “No-o-o-o-o!”
Klandagi padded a few steps off, dragging his nails so that Wilu could hear him, then turned back. “By the way, in case you decide to try to grope your way out, or take a chance and follow the stream? Oh, that would be delicious, swimming into a darkness without end, and without air. Just in case? Tsola will be able to see you at every moment, and she’ll send me after you. To cut you up and bring you back to this fine place.”
Klandagi walked off.
About a hundred human steps away he laid down to watch and listen. Wilu was sobbing. The tears went on entirely too long, and Klandagi got impatient. Why not go on? he thought. I don’t care which way he dies. But he was curious.
When Wilu stopped crying, he called out, “Klandagi? Klandagi? Klandagi?… Anyone?”
Silence. The silence that would last forever.
Wilu sat still. Klandagi supposed he was thinking of it, between flights of pure terror. After a long while, Wilu pulled his knife out of his belt. He held it to his cheek for a moment. Then he raised it high and plunged it into his belly.
Klandagi padded back to him. The knife was thrust in fully to the hilt, the hand clutched tight on it. The wound would do the job before long.
He touched a paw to the hand that didn’t hold the knife. Wilu’s whole body jumped. He moaned.
Kalndagi said, “You’re more of a man than I thought. Good-bye.” The great cat walked off and kept going.
54
In the morning Zeya touched his mother’s face and drew his hand away. He couldn’t bear to feel her flesh cold.
Going hungry, he pulled the robe she lay on until it was on an east-facing slope. The work was exhausting, and he couldn’t go any further. But just at that moment Klandagi came bounding across the valley. With his teeth and Zeya’s ebbing strength, they got her decently high.
They sat and rested a few moments. “Stones,” said Zeya.
Klandagi transformed himself into an old man—panthers had no fingers to grip stones. They covered her decently. “We’ll leave her all the food I have,” said the man once called The Hungry One. He looked around. “I don’t know the songs,” he said. The songs that eased the spirits of the dead and helped them on their way.
“I don’t think we should sing them anyway. Her journey won’t begin for seven days. Tsola will want to sing the songs herself.”
Zeya thought about it. “You’re sure.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the ugly, obscene stones that held his mother. “What now, then?”
“The people need you. Turn eagle and go.”
“I think I’d better turn eagle and sleep.”
They both turned, and both slept.
Before the sun was high, the two of them stood at a gap in the ridge and looked down on the village. Hundreds of Galayi men and women were assembled outside the council house. The building would never hold so many people, and many would have to watch from outside. Several chiefs were on their way, ready to make an entrance when the crowd was seated.
Klandagi said, “Tsola said to tell you this. You have to make your appearance in eagle form.”
“No,” said Zeya.
“And she said you’d say no. So I’m to tell you that it’s a gift from Thunderbird to all the Galayi people. They need to see it, to feel the power given them through you.”
Zeya nodded.
Soon he coasted toward the council building. People didn’t take notice of him until he made a soft landing next to the smoke hole. Then some pointed and many laughed.
With wings still spread Zeya turned slowly to each of the four directions, showing his eagle self
to all the people. Then, feather by hair, talon by leg, wing by arm, he changed himself into the young leader Zeya.
People buzzed and then roared. They cried, “Chief! Chief! Chief!”
Zeya slid down the mud-slabbed dome, and Ninyu gave him a hand to the ground. Jemel rushed up and hugged him tight.
“Come sit by the sacred fire,” Ninyu said. “The people want you to be a chief. The chiefs want to make you… They’ll explain.”
“How silly,” said Zeya.
“How necessary,” said Ninyu.
“You’ll do it,” said Jemel.
“Yes,” said Klandagi.
“All right,” Zeya said. “Klandagi, will you go get Tsola? All of this—all—is her doing. Meanwhile the three of us will talk to people.”
So they did. Each going his own way, they sat with as many people as they could. They listened to the never-ending laments of Tusca women who had lost their loved ones. They listened to women glad to have more children and a second wife coming to the house. Talked to men who worried about the coming hunt, and whether they would get enough food for so many mouths for the winter. Gathered children together and told stories. Several times Zeya told the one about how Buzzard gave the world its shape.
The other chiefs caught on and followed the example of Zeya, Ninyu, and Jemel.
Zeya encouraged everyone to eat heartily at midday. Not long after they finished, Klandagi led Tsola into the council house blindfolded, and the people assembled.
Zeya greeted Tsola, introduced Jemel to her, and sat behind the Seer.
“Join me,” she said, and patted the ground beside her. Zeya did, feeling odd.
When all the chiefs were seated, she smoked the sacred pipe and passed it to Zeya. Feeling more uncomfortable, he smoked and passed it. When all the chiefs had sent their breath, their prayers to the sky as smoke, Tsola said, “Who wants to speak?”
Ninyu led the way with a canticle of his grief at the deaths of so many Galayi. Each chief took his turn, a chorus of loss and sorrow.
Tsola asked Zeya to speak of his mother. He did, and he then he plunged on. “I feel devastated. But I know that this single death, even if she was the most important person in my life, was small compared to what the people have endured. We abide in anguish today. We have walked in desolation since the day I was born.”
Everyone knew the story of how Zeya’s mother fled from Inaj, who then killed Tensa and launched twenty years of war.
“I ask us all to make the shed blood into life-giving water. Let us find a way to make horror into wisdom. Let us use tragedy to make our spirits buoyant. Let us turn death into resurrection.”
He fumbled for more thoughts, found none, and sat down.
Ninyu stood and said, “We can take Zeya’s words and turn them into a song of hope.”
When he sat down, Tsola waited for the other chiefs, wanting someone to add his voice. No one did—it was too soon.
So she told a story. How the word came to her of a boy born to save the people. How her friend Sunoya raised the boy to walk the path of prophecy. When the young man resisted, the force of life itself seized him and carried him into the Emerald Cavern and to the journey he was born for. How he defeated the assassins to gather 108 beautiful feathers. How he crossed into the land beyond the Sky Arch, encountered demons, earned an audience with Thunderbird, and brought the Cape of Eagle Feathers back to the people. How he brought a personal power as well, which they had witnessed the last several days.
“The nine remaining village chiefs have conferred,” she said. “They are unanimous. At this time and in this place, I, the Medicine Chief of all Medicine Chiefs of the Galayi people, declare Ulo-Zeya, The One Who Dwells in Clouds, the supreme chief of the nation, the chief of all White chiefs, Red Chiefs, and Medicine Chiefs.”
People cheered.
Tsola turned her blindfolded eyes to Zeya and smiled.
“I can’t,” he said softly.
“It’s your destiny,” said Tsola.
“I’m still foolish.” He looked at Jemel, and they both thought of his bout of jealousy.
“We all are,” said Tsola. “But you are chosen. Stand up and say something.”
So he spoke to all his people. “I’m afraid you trust me with too much. But I will do my best to help you all.”
They cheered louder.
Ninyu stood up. “Next week we will celebrate the marriage of Zeya and Jemel.” Sorrowfully he added, “After many burying songs.”
Jemel got up and showed off her belly. People laughed.
“I will sing songs in their honor,” said Tsola, “and all the people are invited to join in.”
When the sun fell, Zeya and Jemel spent their first night together as a married couple in a house loaned to them by the White Chief of the Cheowas.
Sitting by the fire naked, they sang to each other the traditional song to bind their affections forever. Together they sang four times, “Our souls have come together.”
And alternately, four times, “Your name is Jemel, you are born to the Soco people,” and “Your name is Ulo-Zeya, you are born to the Tusca people.”
Then each of them warmed hands by the fire and tongued spittle onto their fingers. While they rubbed this spittle onto the others’ breasts, they sang four times together:
Your body, I take it, I eat it
Your flesh I take, I eat
Our souls have come together
Your heart I take, I eat
O ancient fire, now our souls are meshed
Never to part
Zeya watched the firelight flicker on Jemel’s face, her arms, her breasts. He was filled with love, with purpose, with dedication. They continued together.
Black spider, bind us in your web
Until I met her [him] I was covered with loneliness
My eyes had faded
I went along sorrowing
I was an ancient wanderer
Spider hold us together in your web
Our souls have come together
Ancient fire, hold us firmly in your grasp
Never let go your hold
They curled up together and slept.
Jemel’s cry startled Zeya awake.
“It’s time for the baby!”
He bolted outside to get help. Against the darkness light was a breath in the east. He ran downstream to Ninyu’s brush hut.
“The baby’s coming!”
Ninyu’s wives scurried upstream to Jemel.
Ninyu quickly prepared the sacred tea. He and Zeya walked in a stately manner to the river. Zeya looked for the moon, which his people called “sun living in the night.” A fingernail of darkness chipped off its right edge. They passed the house of Jemel’s tribulations and stopped at the river bend, within sight and sound of the house.
In the house Jemel lay on hide blankets, catching her breath. The pains were terrible. Poles crossed and tied together slashed over her head.
“This is the pain of life,” said her aunt, the midwife.
Jemel smiled tartly. Birth was painful, death was painful. Life? Life was joy, if you had the strength to tear it out and eat it. That was the way the Moon Woman saw things.
P-a-a-a-i-i-n-n!
She reached up for the poles, lifted her body up a hand span, and pushed. This was the old way of birthing. The midwife wanted it and so did she. But now everything was kicked out of her mind but pain.
When it eased and coiled back on itself, she let herself drop down and rest. Why so much pain? She wished she could take a whip and scourge it.
“Think of the child coming to you,” said the midwife.
She couldn’t, not now, and certainly not when the pain swamped her.
“I’m excited to see if its left fingers are webbed,” said the midwife.
Jemel choked on a laugh. That was the last thing she cared about.
Pain came roaring back, and she inched herself off the ground. Torture.
Zeya stripped off his clothes. Ninyu set down
two small pots of paint, one red and one white, which only members of the Paint Clan could make.
Zeya waded into the water, shivering from the night air and the cold liquid. Then he dipped himself all the way into the river.
On the bank Ninyu drank the tea. Until the baby was born he would search for omens to guide the child’s life.
Soon, where a slice of clouds lay against the ridges to the east, Zeya saw the day’s first appearance of the sun living in the day—the clouds were turning red.
“A good sign,” he murmured. He sang:
Draw near and hear me, sun living in the day
You have come from the east to paint me red
The color of power and success
And white, the color of happiness.
He got the paint pots from the bank and carefully covered his face with the red paint on one side, white on the other.
My name is Ulo-Zeya, born to the Tusca people
My wife is Jemel, born to the Soco people
Sun living in the day
You have come from the east
to cover us in the red clothing of success
and the white clothing of happiness.
He painted his neck and arms.
Sun living in the day
You come from the east
You are bringing us a child
I will paint our child in red and white clothing.
He painted his torso.
Sun living in the day
Grant our child a life painted red.
He heard shouts from the house. He was a father.
Sun living in the day
Cloak our child in the white clothing of joy.
A shout of triumph came from the house. As he waded to the shore,Jemel came out.
Hurrying, he stepped onto the bank naked.
Jemel was beaming, and she carried a small human being.
Zeya ran and got there first. He had never felt so happy. It was time for him to paint their daughter.
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