Isle of Woman (Geodyssey)

by Piers Anthony

  What about the arts? This was tied to language, not as an effect, but as a corollary. In order to develop language, mankind’s mind had to be reprogrammed to be able to manipulate symbols. When that sophistication was achieved, there turned out to be a broader application of that ability: the appreciation of art. To draw another analogy: at one time our ancestors had color vision, then lost it, and later regained it. The ability to perceive color is an obvious advantage to those who eat fruit; with it, a person can go immediately to that one fruit out of a dozen that is ripe, instead of wasting his energy picking green fruits. Color perception thus became a survival skill, because if the number of ripe fruits is limited, those people who are slow will go hungry. But once that ability was developed for the immediate selfish purpose of snatching the best fruits, it also enabled that person to see and appreciate the beauty of the sunset. A form of art became possible, as a corollary. Similarly, the development of the ability to manipulate word symbols efficiently, for complete language, opened the mind to all the other symbolism available. The arts: sculpture, painting, music, dance—and, within the language, the larger symbolism of storytelling. All gifts of that first great breakthrough that made mankind become modern in mind as well as body. Thus this was perhaps the most significant single breakthrough of the species—and it never showed in the body.

  CHAPTER 6

  * * *

  VOYAGE

  “With full language came improvements in all the works of modern mankind. The arts flourished, but it was technology that enabled humans to expand their territory. The other primate species were physically stronger, and had prior possession of the land, but they could not compete against the superior weapons and organization of the invaders. Thus by about 40,000 years ago (there is doubt about the date, but this seems like the most reasonable case) our kind was making inroads into what had for 50,000 years been forbidden territory: the country to the east. At this time the ice age was in full force and still intensifying; glaciers covered northern Europe, and there were small glaciers in mountainous regions farther south. Thus mankind followed the warmer terrain to India, southeast Asia, and on to the island chains beyond. The glaciers took up so much of the world’s water that the sea level was hundreds of feet lower than it is today, and there was more land exposed. But finally they ran out of land, and had to cross open water, uncertain whether there was any haven beyond.

  WHY are we going away?” Crystal asked as they carried baskets of dried fruit to the great raft. She was four years old, and curious about everything.

  Ember used the question as a pretext to rest, briefly, for her basket was heavy and she was sweating. She had always been physically healthy, but had mated perhaps too young, and it had taken her two years to get pregnant. Then her first baby had been stillborn. Crystal had been born when Ember was sixteen, and done well, but food had been short and Ember had had to nurse her until just recently. The same had happened throughout the tribe, and the birthrate had declined, for normally a woman did not conceive again until she weaned the prior child. The tribe needed more territory and better hunting and gathering, so that food became plentiful again and the women got less lean.

  But Ember did not care to have her daughter understand just how grim the picture was. The mere contemplation of it made her cheek twitch. What point, to tell the child that not only did they face possible starvation, they faced destruction as a tribe? For the hostile Green Feather Tribe was advancing across the island, intent on putting an end to the People Tribe. There was no doubt about what they would do, if they could, for they had proclaimed it: kill the men, enslave the children, and divide the women into three camps. One camp for the old or ugly, who would be hobbled by having the tendon of one foot cut, and who would then work as directed or starve. One camp for the desirable young women who were willing to serve whatever men chose them, their children by those men becoming members of the Green Feather Tribe. One camp for desirable young women who refused to serve, and who would therefore be bound, hobbled, raped, and fed only as long as men desired them for further rape. No, Ember would not tell Crystal that her father would be killed outright and her mother raped and maimed, or that Crystal herself would be put in a camp for children where she would be worked to death if a Green Feather family did not choose to adopt her. That perhaps she was already too old for such adoption, because she would cry about the loss of her family, and refuse to be consoled by any other family. So she might simply be thrown into the sea and forgotten.

  “This land is worn,” Ember said carefully. “Its animals and birds are almost gone, and so are its fruits and nuts and tubers. We are living mostly on shellfish. It is time for us to find a new land, where there is plenty to hunt and forage.”

  “But where is there any other land?” the girl asked. “The Bad Tribe has the land behind, and there is no land ahead. Just the sea.”

  “There is land ahead,” Ember said. “We can not see it, because the sea is wide, but it is there. We know because one of our small rafts was lost in a storm, and the wind blew it far away across the sea, and it came to new land there. Then the men managed to paddle back here to tell us of it.” She did not express her own severe doubt about that land, because of four men originally on the raft, two had been lost in the storm, another had expired on the way back, and the lone survivor had been found far out, raving. The only thing that lent credence to his story was the seed of a strange fruit found on the raft, like none known before. But Ember suspected that he could have been blown to one of the islands of the chain, back behind their own, inhabited by other tribes who perhaps found strange fruits. Not a new land at all.

  “Will it be fun?” Crystal asked.

  Fun? Ember dreaded it! She had seen how angry the sea could be, and she feared to face it herself. The men went out daily on the small rafts to spear fish, staying close to land, but even then the sudden storms could catch them. It was the consensus of the tribal elders that the current should carry the rafts across in the course of three to five days. The storm had taken the one small raft across in one day, but that was not the preferred way. Sometimes a lunar month went by without a real storm, but sometimes two storms occurred in a day. It would be a horrible gamble, braving the sea for five days, out of sight of the land. The very notion of losing sight of land appalled her.

  “It may not be fun, but it is necessary,” Ember said, as carefully as before. “We shall have to make the best of it.” And hope that they all did not die.

  “I think it will be fun,” the child said brightly. “Daddy says we’ll have a house on the raft, and even fire.”

  Ember smiled. “Daddy is right, of course. It should be fun.” Oh for the innocence of childhood! She remembered when she had been Crystal’s age, going out gathering with her mother just after a fire had burned the land, and encountering a dangerous animal, so that they had had to retreat to the water. She had been delighted at the time, but now realized how risky that had been. Her own mother had shielded her not only from danger, but from the knowledge of danger. Now Ember was doing the same for Crystal.

  They picked up their burdens and resumed their walk. They followed the path down to the harbor where the three big rafts were. These were quite different from the little ones; in fact they were enormous. Two were already in the water, while the men were still making the third. They were of stout bamboo, lashed together with tough vines. They looked like the mats used on the floors of their houses. That was not surprising, because the mats were made of small bamboo; the principle was the same. When these went to sea, they would tow the small rafts along with them, to use as shuttles between the big ones, and for fishing. If they didn’t have to take apart too many of the small ones to provide cord for the last big one. So far they had gotten by without doing that, but they were getting pressed for time and materials.

  They walked down to the shore, and then out on the stepping-stones leading to their raft. Ember went first, making sure the footing was secure. When she stepped on the edge
of the raft with her burden, the surface of it hardly gave way. The bound bamboo poles were each the thickness of her fist, and their air-filled segments made them light and strong. They were much better than wood for this purpose. It was impossible for such a raft to sink, and almost impossible for it to be battered apart. But savage waves could still wash things and people off the surface and into the sea.

  They crossed the floating mat to the cabin in the center. This too was made of bound bamboo, with smaller poles bound between a framework made of larger ones. The cabin seemed small, but was actually large enough for more than twenty people to sleep, snugly fitted. Each raft would hold more than thirty people, but the others would be outside paddling most of the time. If a storm came, those others could cling to the projecting poles of the cabin. They might get battered by the water, but they wouldn’t get washed overboard. These rafts had been designed with survival rather than comfort in mind.

  “Oooo, fun!” Crystal exclaimed, delighted by the cabin. She ran into it and out again, and peeked at Ember around a corner.

  Ember set down her bag and took out the fruits, placing each carefully in the bamboo trunk built into the cabin. The water could be seen below the floor, and that was intentional: any rain or wave would flow right on through, instead of collecting on the raft. The tribe had had experience with rafts for generations, and knew many tricks like this. But no one had ever before made rafts this big, or tried to float them this far. Ember’s worry warred with her awe of the accomplishment, and her worry was winning.

  There was a cry from the shore. “Ember!”

  She set down the last of the fruit and went out. “I am here!” she called back. It was a messenger boy of about ten. He was Sand, so named for the color of his hair.

  He crossed the stepping-stones and came onto the raft. “Boo!” Crystal cried, jumping out from behind the cabin.

  Sand stiffened, stepped back, and waved his arms as if about to fall overboard, while the child laughed. He was a good sport. Then he entered the cabin, where Ember was arranging the fruit to fit tightly, wasting no space. She knew that they might have to survive on the raft longer than they planned, so they needed plenty of food. They would be fishing, of course, but fish were chancy while fruit was sure. With luck, they would catch lots of fish, and have fruit left over when they reached land. With luck.

  “Hide—I’ll find you,” the boy said to Crystal. She disappeared with a giggle. Then, to Ember, he murmured, “Bad news. Scorch is hurt.”

  A chill passed across her as if a cold wind had stirred. Scorch had gone out to collect special wood for the voyage: dense, slow-burning varieties that were hard to douse with water. They did not want to lose their fire in a storm! What had happened?

  “Green Feather,” Sand said in a low tone, so that Crystal could not hear. Then, to be sure, he turned his head and called, “Are you ready? I’m going to find you!” And back to Ember: “They are coming in fast. They surprised him. He killed one and got free, but with a spear in his back. We drove them away, but he is bleeding. He is at the center house.”

  Ember strode from the cabin. “Play with Crystal,” she said tersely. “Give me time.”

  He nodded. He ducked out and around the corner. “I’m going to find you!” he called again. There was a hidden titter.

  Ember paused at the edge of the raft. “Don’t fall in the water, Crystal,” she said. “I will see you when I bring the next bag.” She crossed the stones and hurried to the main house of the village.

  Scorch was lying there, with two women trying to help him. There was blood-soaked material beside them. “Oh my love!” Ember cried, getting down to hug him as well as she could without hurting him. “Are you all right?”

  “I am now,” he said bravely. “It’s not serious.”

  She soon saw that it was intermediate: the spear had glanced off a rib and torn through the flesh of his side. It surely hurt terribly, and he had lost blood, but he would not die. If he didn’t get a death-dealing fever.

  “We need to get you by a fire,” Ember said. Because there seemed to be less illness by the fire. Sometimes wounded men got a fever that killed them, but less often when they were kept hot from the outset.

  They got him to the fire and built it up so that he was bathed in the heat. Ember cleaned the wound and put bandages on him, binding them tightly enough to stop the blood. “It was my best day, when you chose me as your mate,” Scorch said as he relaxed for sleep.

  Ember kissed him, then hurried back to reclaim Crystal. Scorch was a good man, and he had not disappointed her. She could have done much worse, gambling as she had on a stranger. She knew now that a man of fire was not necessarily an ideal mate. Scorch had grown with time and added responsibility, and was well regarded in the tribe, and a good father too. Yet somehow she retained her longing for the ideal man she might have had, the one who was not merely good, but perfect. For the one she had loved but had not been able to have. She did her best to conceal that secret longing from Scorch, but feared that he suspected it. She felt guilty about it, but even in this hour of Scorch’s injury she could not quite abolish her foolish dream.

  She met Sand and Crystal near the shore. They had finished their game and were returning to the village. “Mommy! You forgot your bag of fruit!” Crystal cried.

  So she had. But now it was time to tell her daughter the truth— gently, with reassurances, so that she wouldn’t panic. Ember braced herself for the words.

  Next day Scorch was stable. It seemed that the bad fever was not attacking him, but he was weak. He would have to rest for several days while his wound healed.

  But the Green Feather Tribe was offering no respite. They were aware that the People were planning to escape, and they didn’t want it. They wanted children to adopt and women to use. They also wanted to be sure that the People didn’t ally with some other tribe and return to drive the Green Feathers from the island. They also wanted the big rafts, which would aid their own fishing. So they were coming right on in to complete the conquest immediately. They would close in on the village in the afternoon, because they would be traveling in the morning. They knew that the People needed several more days to get ready, but could leave as early as tomorrow if they left their third raft unfinished.

  Which was the problem. Two rafts were almost ready, and could be pushed out to sea soon. The third was not ready. They needed more time to complete it and load it with food. They could not stand and fight; the Green Feathers were too numerous and vicious. What could they do?

  “Go to the senior meeting,” Scorch told her, when she acquainted him with the situation. “Tell them that only fire will stop the enemy. We must burn the grass, the forest, even our own village, to keep them at bay while we escape. And when we are gone and they come in, they will have nothing but ashes. Tell them I will rouse myself and do it.”

  “You can’t do it,” she protested. “You are too weak.”

  “I can do it,” he insisted. “I know how to set the fires, as they do not. I can read the wind and the vegetation, to make a wall that will burn them.”

  “But you will use up your last strength,” she said. “You will be caught by your own fire, and die.”

  “No,” he said.

  “Don’t tell me no,” she said. “I know the fire too. I know your injury. I will not let you sacrifice yourself.”

  He saw that he had not fooled her. “I must, Ember,” he said. “To save you, and Crystal, and the People. If I do not, much worse will happen. You know I must do it.”

  She knew he would do it, if she did not prevent it. “I will do it,” she said firmly. “I will set the fires, and still have strength to return. You know this is better.”

  He seemed to want to argue, but she cut him off by leaving. She went right to the senior meeting, where the nine senior men were consulting. “I bring word from Scorch,” she announced. “We must use fire to stop them. If we set fires now, they will burn toward the enemy, and spread, and safeguard our retreat t
o the rafts.”

  “But fire will burn our village too,” a senior objected.

  “Scorch says that it will—but that this means that the Green Feathers will inherit only ashes from us.”

  The men exchanged glances, nodding. They liked that notion. None of them were from the Green Feather Tribe, because it had come from elsewhere, attacking and destroying the local tribes. The tribes these men had left behind had been taken by the Green Feathers. Even if the People had the strength to stand their ground, they would not admit any Green Feather men, or allow their own men to join that tribe. Destruction was the only answer.

  “But can Scorch do it?” one man asked. “He is injured.”

  “He can not,” Ember replied evenly. “But I can. I know the fire too. I will set the island ablaze.”

  “But you are a woman!”

  “Smaller loss if I am captured,” she retorted.

  “Perhaps,” one said, with a flattering doubt. “Do what you must. We shall see to the evacuation. We will be at sea by dusk, though unprepared.”

  “See that my child Crystal goes with her father.”

  They nodded. They knew that this was no routine mission that Ember was about to undertake. Her chances of returning safely were not ideal. If she did not do so by dusk, she would be stranded. No one needed to remind her what that would mean.

  Ember wasted no time. She made up a good firepot nestled in a shell, with several stout slow-burning leaves to hold the coals in, and plenty of punk in the middle. She took several slender dry sticks, and a bag of dry moss, so that she would not have to forage for flame material in the field. She donned a stout harness to hold a pack containing these things. She knew she looked much like a man now, because of the way her stout jacket-cape covered her breasts, but that was good. She intended to do a man’s work today.