The water erupted in a spray of blood and foam. Flint knife in hand, Aizarg leapt onto the thrashing fish. He grabbed it behind the jaws and plunged his knife into its soft underbelly.
Levidi leapt into the water and kept tension on the rope while Aizarg grappled with the beast, spear still attached. One wrong twist and the spear tip would gut Aizarg.
The fish slowed and then ceased struggling. Aizarg stood in the waist-deep water and hefted the sturgeon with a broad grin.
“You know, friend, you didn’t have to jump in after it. My shot was clean.”
“Of course,” Aizarg winked. “And it would have dragged you until sunset.”
With a grunt, Aizarg hoisted the sturgeon into Levidi’s boat. The boat settled low under the monster’s weight.
“I think we’re going to need a bigger boat,” Levidi said.
“I’m hungry,” Aizarg said.
The men dragged their boats onto the sandbar at the mouth of the stream. They found a shade tree and sat down to their meal.
“The fish was poised to move upstream to lay her eggs. Soon there will be more,” Levidi said, stuffing dried fish strips into his mouth. “We should come back in a few days.”
Aizarg thought about Levidi’s statement for a minute. Something struck him odd about this sturgeon. “It’s a female, but no roe came out when I gutted it,” he said.
Levidi considered this. “Hmm...true. That’s odd. No matter, soon more of the fish will move upstream from the sea.”
No sooner had Aizarg taken a bite of the smoked fish cake than he heard a grunt in the brush behind them. Both men looked at each other, quickly rewrapped their food, and ran back to the boats. They unlashed their heavy spears and hurried to the bushes.
They stopped at the edge of the thick foliage and listened to the soft grunts coming from the undergrowth.
“How many do you think?” Aizarg asked excitedly.
“Five, maybe six. At least one drift of sows and sucklings. If we’re lucky, there’s a boar sniffing around the sows.”
Aizarg couldn’t believe their luck. First, a sturgeon and now they were closing on a herd of pigs. Both men slipped into the reeds and moved uphill, away from the shore.
As the men vanished into the underbrush, shapes began to emerge from the reed beds and the stream. The fish slid noiselessly just under the surface and slipped past the beached boats. At first there were only a few, but in a matter of minutes dozens, then hundreds, filled the water.
Then there were thousands.
Great sturgeon, panfish, bass, catfish, and minnows swam side by side. Even crawfish scuttled across the sandy bottom under the black mass. The host moved silently under the water like a black tide. Not a tail thrashed the water, not one fin broke the surface. The bizarre school didn’t dart or meander. They all moved with purpose in one direction...
...out to sea..
3. Fear
The Lo were not considered adept hunters by their land-dwelling, nomadic neighbors. This assessment was made out of ignorance. While the Lo seldom ventured beyond the coastal forests and marshes, they were excellent hunters in their element.
The Lo rarely left the marshes for the open steppe, and then only to nearby coastal trading camps. To them, the steppe, or g`an, was an alien place, dry and barren with no place to hide. There, they were vulnerable to hostile savages who possessed both horses and bows. Even their word for ‘enemy’ was a-g`an, or ‘of the steppe.’ So ingrained was the safety of the Great Sea in their blood, they didn’t have a word for “fear.” Instead, they used the phrase, ‘I cannot smell the sea.’
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Aizarg and Levidi stalked through the thickets, careful not to spook their prey. The terrain gradually sloped up and away from the marshy shore. Reeds gave way to small trees and grasses. Ahead, they heard the soft grunt of pigs.
Aizarg stopped as Levidi came up next to him.
“What’s wrong?” Levidi asked.
“The pigs are moving away from the marsh. We’re only a few dozen paces from the grasslands. Why is this herd moving there?”
“I don’t know,” Levidi sniffed the air. “The wind is light, but in our faces. If they’re running from predators, they aren’t coming from this direction.”
“It’s not a predator. They’re not squealing warnings.”
Levidi shrugged. “The wind is favorable, we should follow them.”
The small fir and hardwood trees were now interspersed with steppe grasses. As the terrain opened up, they stepped more cautiously. If they stumbled upon a large boar it would take both of them to bring it down. A boar was as dangerous as a lion. Two boars were more dangerous than a pride of lions.
They emerged on the edge of a meadow covered in fescue and feather grass and caught glimpses of the open steppe just beyond the next row of trees. The men hunkered behind a thicket of briars and surveyed the field.
A big sow and half a dozen piglets milled about on the far side of the meadow, slightly beyond spear range.
“We’ll have to make two trips to haul the meat back home!” Levidi couldn’t contain his excitement.
Aizarg studied the pigs as unease rose in his mind.
“This is wrong,” he said.
“Yes,” Levidi agreed. “It will be difficult to swing around to the other side of the clearing without the beasts smelling us. If you go left, I’ll go right. Drive them to me and I’ll spear the big sow!”
“No, Levidi. I meant everything is wrong. Those piglets are too small for grazing. Look at the sow’s teats, she should be in the swamp bottoms, suckling her piglets, not on the edge of the steppe where even a fox can steal her young.”
“Are they being driven forward by our presence?”
“No. If so, they would try to move left or right and double back into the thickets. Pigs are smart. They’re not agitated and the piglets aren’t hovering close to their mother.”
Levidi nodded at his friend’s wisdom. They heard the brush rustle behind them.
They turned and faced a lion only a few paces away. Too late to run, they were trapped and now the prey. Both men crouched, too terrified to raise their spears.
Again, Aizarg sensed something wrong. The lion didn’t crouch. Its eyes were unfocused and it panted lazily.
He’s not attacking us.
The lion, one of the largest Aizarg had ever seen, strolled with a casual gait past them into the open field.
Moments later, several lionesses emerged from the thickets and trotted past. One brushed up against Aizarg, its short fur warm against his bare skin. He caught a whiff of its feral musk as a dozen or so cubs scurried from the brush chasing their mothers.
The pride sauntered out into the meadow with the pigs, which didn’t even acknowledge the predators. Together, the drift and the pride turned and disappeared into the thin undergrowth on the other side of the meadow.
Aizarg slumped onto his bottom, trembling. Levidi knelt on both knees, leaning on his spear. Neither spoke for several minutes.
“What in the goddess’s name just happened?” Levidi finally managed to speak.
“I don’t know.” Aizarg stood and looked around, wondering what might emerge from the thickets next. He scanned the meadow, then reached down and lifted Levidi by the arm.
“Stand up,” he said.
Levidi stood and swayed, righting himself against Aizarg. He took deep, cleansing breaths to calm himself. Levidi turned back toward the shore when Aizarg grabbed his arm.
“No, not that way!”
“What do you mean? An evil has taken the beasts! We must consult the patesi-le.”
Aizarg couldn’t take his eyes off the other end of the meadow.
I am treading into the realm of gods and demons. Every instinct told him to flee, but the urge to see beyond the meadow overwhelmed his fear.
“Go back to the village if you wish. I will follow later.” With that, Aizarg pressed into the meadow.
“The boats are t
his way!” Levidi tried not show his fear. He muttered something under his breath and ran after Aizarg, spear at the ready.
They emerged onto the grassy steppe. No longer shielded by the trees, the warm, dry breeze blew back Aizarg’s long red hair. He didn’t like the way it felt.
Fresh tracks scored the thick prairie thatch. They formed a wide trail in the black soil, leading over a hill before them.
“Turn around, Aizarg. Let’s go back!” Levidi said between clenched teeth. “I no longer smell the sea.”
Aizarg ignored him, eyes fixed on the hill. He said a prayer for protection and started to climb.
Levidi trudged up the hill after his friend.
Aizarg knelt at the summit, gazing over a gentle valley. Tears of awe streamed down his face. Levidi dropped his spear and fell to his knees beside him.
The bowl-shaped valley stretched north as far as the eye could see, with a stream cutting through the middle. The terrain sloped gently up away from the stream to the east and crested in low, rolling prairie hills. To the southwest, the stream entered thin forest and marshes.
From ridge to ridge, marsh to horizon, animals blanketed the entire valley so densely the men couldn’t see the ground. There were more animals than Aizarg could count, more than he could imagine.
Great clouds of dust rose and drifted south from tens of thousands hooves and paws. Not a howl, bleat, or roar sounded in the valley, only the muted thunder of milling multitudes. Wolves lay down next to goats. Lions napped by wallowing pigs.
In the sky, clouds of birds wheeled and soared, casting dappled shadows over the entire valley. Darting here and there, smaller birds flew the lowest. Above them, the vultures drifted up and down on the currents of air. Above all, raptors kept watch on everything below.
The men didn’t recognize all the animals. Some, like the giant monsters near the edge of the valley, were terrifyingly odd. They walked on all fours and had long noses with great horns growing out of their mouths.
The rising din of clicking and rustling suddenly drowned the distant sound of the milling animals. Levidi screamed and jumped up. Aizarg felt something move over his calf and scrambled to his feet. A sea of insects swarmed out from the marshes and flowed around the men through the tall grass toward the valley. The ground came alive as ants, centipedes, beetles and every imaginable creeping creature streamed into the valley.
Levidi danced about, trying vainly to avoid the swarming mass. Stunned, Aizarg stood motionless, letting the insects move over his feet.
A great buzz rose behind them. Both men turned to see a thick cloud of winged insects rise from the trees. The swarm ebbed and flowed like a living wave, blotting out the sun as it passed overhead.
Levidi looked down and saw a viper slither across his toes. He bolted back down the hill and Aizarg immediately followed.
“The world has gone mad!” Levidi screamed as they plunged into the brush.
4. The Tender Curse
It was Lo custom for the wife of the sco-lo-ti to serve as the village patesi-le, the shaman. The relationship between earthly leader and spiritual leader represented the bond between Psatina and Oeto-sy: the earth and sky. They joined as one in their daughter Sethagasi, the Great Sea, who created the Lo. Man was the son of the Earth Mother, Woman the daughter of the Sky Father. The li-ge amulet, two teardrops, one black, one white, opposite and intertwined in a harmonious circle, represented the relationship between sky and earth, woman and man. The li-ge could only be worn by the sco-lo-ti and his patesi-le and symbolized their soul bond. The Lo said, “There is peace when the souls of man and woman flow together like water.”
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Though he didn’t want to, duty bound Aizarg to tell Atamoda about the Valley of the Beasts. As patesi-le, she prayed throughout the night on behalf of the village. In their hut, she knelt and chanted before a tiny altar, a rough wooden shelf which held a small brazier and several clay figurines, each representing a Lo god. Custom deemed it taboo to disturb her with earthly concerns while she prayed. Therefore, Alaya cared for their children while Aizarg met with the village men.
As the sun set, Levidi and Aizarg told their tale atop the köy-lo-hely, “the sacred meeting place of the people.” This large open-air platform, the heart of the arun-ki, could easily accommodate fifty men. Four docks, each with its own ladder, surrounded the platform. A large, hammered bronze brazier stood on a tri-pod in the center of the platform.
The six elders sat closest to the brazier, the blazing light illuminating their deeply concerned faces. Elders were men who lived long enough to see all their sons take wives and were considered blessed. Though they had no formal power, a good sco-lo-ti valued their council. Behind them, the rest of the men sat in the shadows. Aizarg and Levidi finished their account.
“You’ve heard our tale. I seek your council,” Aizarg held his hands out, palms up. “I have no knowledge of such things. As I speak, our patesi-le beseeches the spirits for guidance.”
No one spoke until Atta, Levidi’s grandfather, stood. The oldest man in the village at nearly fifty summers, his long gray hair held no trace of its original black and only a few teeth remained in his mouth. He still lived in his own hut, put his boat to sea every morning and came back with a respectable catch. Considered a source of good fortune, Atta sired more children than any man in village memory. When his second wife passed on to heli-dar, the afterlife, he took a third, who already bore him two healthy boys.
“Sco-lo-ti, I ask to be heard,” he said, his voice deep and somber.
“Please.” Relieved, Aizarg sat down in deference to the elder. Perhaps Atta, in his long years, had an answer to this mystery.
Atta furrowed his brow, ran his tongue around the inside his mouth, chasing the ghosts of his long lost teeth, and then spoke.
“My family, normally I say what happens on the g’an is not a concern to us.”
Nods met his statement.
“However, this time things are different. What happens in the marsh is Lo business. What you saw today is magic, and only a god can wield magic this powerful. I am no patesi-le, but if the gods saw fit to drive the animals out of the marshes, it must mean they’re offended. We’ve obviously done something wicked in their eyes.” Atta waived his gnarled finger at the village men. “I think we have relied too much on hunting and not enough on fishing!”
Atta pointed an accusing finger at several of the younger men. “In my day, we Lo fished! Hunting was only used when absolutely necessary. Now the men of our arun-ki hunt all the time, like a bunch of Scythian horse lovers! I think Sethagasi is jealous. I wouldn’t be surprised if she asked Psatina to send the animals away to force her children back to the sea!”
Atta sat to more murmurs and head-nodding, mostly from the elders.
Atta’s words irritated Aizarg, who didn’t think his generation hunted any more than his father’s.
“I wish to speak,” a hesitant voice came from the back of the platform.
Aizarg stood and saw Xva, his cousin and youngest man in the village. He completed the manhood ceremony last spring and his young bride expected a baby. As a man, he had a voice at the köy-lo-hely.
“Sco-lo-ti, I ask to be heard,” he said.
“Speak.” Aizarg did not sit this time.
Xva cleared his throat, paused and nervously looked around at the faces of the older men.
“This afternoon I fished alone in deep waters off the Silt Flats. I sought the white bass. A dark shadow moved under the water. At first I thought it only cloud shadow, but the sky was hazy and clear. It passed under my boat. They were fish, enormous schools of fish of all types, swimming straight out to sea! I have never witnessed such a sight. It moved under me from when the sun was high until it dipped halfway to the west.”
Xva stopped, his lower lip trembling. “After it passed, I did not catch another fish.”
“Why didn’t you speak of this earlier?” Atta stood and challenged him.
“I...I didn’t think anyone would believe me, but I heard Aizarg’s tale and knew I should speak.”
“You sought white bass where the Silt Flats meet the deep, eh?” Aizarg stroked his short, red beard. The white bass migrated to deeper water weeks ago. He suspected Xva didn’t want to speak because he had no business in the Silt Flats, where giant swells crashed into the shallows. Aizarg knew Xva wasn’t fishing, but instead wave riding with the older village boys.
Aizarg loved wave riding as a boy and hated giving it up when he became a man. As a young man, he, too, snuck out to the Silt Flats. He stopped after his father scolded him, saying men have to put food in their family’s bowls and don’t have time for such games.
Aizarg wasn’t too concerned. He knew Xva was a good man. I will have a quiet talk with my young cousin at a more appropriate time.
Ood-i spoke up from the back, “W-When the sun crested noon, I c-c-caught no more f-fish.”
“You probably didn’t start fishing till the sun crested noon!” Levidi said. The men laughed, lifting some of the pall hanging over the gathering. Ood-i lowered his head and turned red.
Aizarg knew Levidi was probably right, but didn’t approve of him publically shaming Ood-i. He hurried to get the attention off of Ood-i.
“Did anyone catch fish after the crest of the sun?” Aizarg asked. It soon became clear no one caught fish after high noon, but only Xva saw the fish migrate to the open sea.
Throughout the night, the men debated the meaning of the day’s events. Occasionally, an elder or a younger man asked Aizarg a question about the Valley of the Beasts, but most of the questions centered on Xva’s account.
Aizarg felt their fear. The men were concerned how long this would last, or if it would ever end. Without fish or game they would surely die. Each hut had several weeks of dried fish on hand, but hunger would grip the arun-ki within a month. The women could harvest wild grains and berries along the shore, but that would only last until the end of fall.
As Aizarg watched the men discuss the day’s events he remembered his father’s words...
Black Sea Gods: Chronicles of Fu Xi Page 2
