Call Down the Stars

by Sue Harrison

  She was wearing Sea Hunter clothing, a loose hoodless parka, her dark hair tucked into its collar rim. The parka hung nearly to her ankles, and the sleeves were long enough to cover her hands. It was black, decorated with shell bangles and sewn in squares of what looked like cormorant feathers. Her hair was cut short over her forehead in a fringe that hung to her eyebrows, and a thin needle of ivory pierced the septum of her nose. Her face was delicate, her cheekbones high under slanted eyes, her mouth small. He found that in watching her, he was holding his breath. She would visit him in his dreams, without doubt, that one.

  She helped the old man sit down, then leaned over to hand him a water bladder, and with her woman’s knife cracked open an urchin shell. Wife, was she? Yikaas was disappointed. But if the old man were important enough—a Dzuuggi among Sea Hunters—then he had earned the right to a young and beautiful wife.

  She began to talk to the people, first in the Sea Hunter language, then in the River tongue. Yikaas smiled. She was a translator, not wife, and best of all she spoke the River language well, with only the trace of an accent.

  Perhaps when she translated his stories, she would decide she wanted to spend a night in his bed. His heart grew large with hope, and he sat very straight, lifted his head. He was wearing a fine parka, one of two his mother had made him especially for storytelling. It was caribou hide, scraped and smoothed until nearly white, then decorated at shoulders and sleeves with rows of wolf teeth and dyed caribou hair. His mother had left fringes across the chest, each knotted around a jade bead.

  When the translator’s eyes, resting for a moment on each storyteller, finally came to him, he smiled at her, but she gave no sign of recognition, skipped over him as though he were only a boy, slave to Kuy’aa.

  He snorted his disgust. She was probably the slave. If so, he could have her in his bed for a bauble.

  He waited, grew impatient as the old man continued to fumble with crooked and swollen fingers at the sea urchin the girl had given him. Would he never begin the stories? But suddenly the girl lifted her arms, spoke in a clear, strong voice. The old man looked up at her, smiled, then again fixed his attention on the sea urchin.

  She was the storyteller? A girl barely old enough to be a wife? Was this how the Sea Hunters honored River People who had traveled so far? He started to get up, but Kuy’aa laid a hand on his arm.

  “Be still and listen,” she said. “I heard this woman tell stories when she was just a child, when you were still learning and not yet ready to attend this celebration.”

  Yikaas did as she bid, but anger filled him from navel to ears, making the girl’s voice difficult to hear. She spoke first in the Sea Hunter language, then in the River tongue. She began with polite comments, and Yikaas, realizing he needed to learn the story traditions of the Sea Hunters, made himself listen. She gave her name: Qumalix, a difficult word for a River man to say, spoken so deeply in the throat, but the Dzuuggi wrapped his tongue around it, let it settle as a whisper in his mouth until he knew he could say it without faltering.

  Qumalix explained that her name meant to be like light, to brighten.

  Yikaas sat with his mouth open, and in his surprise the anger flowed out of his body, was caught in the thin smoke of the seal oil lamps and pushed up through the square hole cut in the top of the ulax.

  Qumalix, so close in meaning to his own name—Yikaas, light.

  He looked at Kuy’aa, saw the knowing in her eyes, as though she were able to read his thoughts.

  Then Qumalix said, “Aa, children, this is a story of times long ago. Listen and hear me.” She spoke boldly, like a woman who could rely on her own wisdom.

  “The Bear-god People came like a tsunami from the sea….” she said.

  The Bear-god People? Yikaas thought. A story he had not heard before. Perhaps, then, he should listen, at least for a while. Kuy’aa wanted him to stay, and it was always good to please an elder, nae’? Besides, he would not forget that in spite of her powerful name, Qumalix was only a girl, much too young to be given the honor of telling the first story….

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Outlet of the present-day Oi River, Suruga Bay, Honshu Island, Japan 6447 B.C.

  DAUGHTER’S STORY

  THE BEAR-GOD WARRIORS came like a tsunami from the sea, their poorly-made and misshapen outriggers sunk so deeply in the water that at first the Boat People only stood on the shore staring, sure that a wave would swamp the dugouts before the warriors could beach them. But the sea gods were asleep, and no waves rose, the water smooth and gray as alder bark.

  Cedar, second wife of Fire Mountain Man, had been grinding seeds with the stone pestle and mortar her father had given her as one of her bride gifts. Her little daughter, Day Soon, was tied to her back, the child content to play with bright shells an aunt had pierced and sewn to the deer hide sling that bound her to her mother.

  As a child, Cedar had lived in another village far to the north, closer to the string of small islands where the Bear-god People lived. Though her own village was never attacked, she knew the stories of what they did, those hairy ones, more animal than human. She had told the people of this village about the Bear warriors, how their hair had gradually changed from straight black human hair to brown, wavy bear fur. How their arms, legs, and chests were also hairy like the bear they worshipped, and how their teeth were pointed like bear teeth. Even their language was only grunts and growls, like the bear language.

  They had come long ago, the storytellers said, from the west and the north, bringing their strange customs with them, their savage worship. They kept bears captive, and when the animals died, the Bear-god People saved the skulls to bind on the doors of their homes so the bear spirits would protect their village.

  They were a people of the land and did not know how to build good boats, how to hollow the straightest, strongest cedar tree using fire and adz to cut away the center so that many men could fit inside. They did not even have harpoons, except for those stolen from the villages they destroyed.

  While the others stared, watching, wondering, Cedar raised her voice and called out a warning, to tell her husband’s people that these were Bear-god warriors, that they would rape the women and do worse to the men, take boys captive to feed to their bears, and dash out babies’ brains on rocks.

  But they all looked at her in wonder. What men would do such hideous things? Surely if the Boat People welcomed them and offered food, these strangers would be content to establish a trading partnership. Did they not come from the north? Perhaps they would bring obsidian, like the traders from Hokkaido.

  The Boat People flicked their fingers at Cedar, turning her words back so her foolish message would not taint their greeting. Then Fire Mountain Man came to her and, taking her arm, walked her to the edge of the beach, bid her stand in her place as second wife, seven steps behind him, two behind his first wife.

  Cedar’s heart beat like bird wings in her chest, battering her lungs and ribs until they ached. Day Soon began to fuss, and First Wife gestured with a quick snap of her hand that Cedar should leave, take the child away so these men in their boats would not be insulted by a little girl’s cries. Cedar ran, her head lowered as if in shame, but she was grateful. She left the beach and hurried to her husband’s iori.

  All Fire Mountain Man’s family lived in the iori—his uncles and brothers and their wives, one sister who was a widow and her children. It was a good, warm place, even in winter, with a huge central hearth and the floor dug into the ground, three or four handlengths down. The walls were framed with chestnut logs, sided with their bark, and the roof was thatched new every few years so rain could not make paths through the straw. Their iori was not as large as some of the others in the village, but the floor was well-packed, swept clean each day with the straw brooms Cedar made herself. She had brought the alder handles from her own village, and they were a comfort to her hands when she longed for the cooler winds of the north.

  Each wife in Fire M
ountain Man’s iori had an area for herself and her children. Cedar’s was the smallest of all, but good nonetheless, especially for a woman who had only one child, and that one a daughter.

  She hurried inside and filled an earthenware pot with chestnut cakes and dried venison, a few smoked fish. She took three bottle gourds filled with water, a woman’s knife, Day Soon’s good luck charm, two deerskin blankets, and a pack made of rush matting. She shoved the knife, pot, blankets, and gourds, as well as some soft skins to swaddle Day Soon’s bottom, into the pack and hefted the awkward bundle to her head. She handed Day Soon a stick of dried fish to chew on and left the iori, walking quickly toward the hills that cupped the village. She passed the builders’ huts, saw that her husband’s newest boat lay on the estuary beach, the outrigger already attached, the main body deep and hollow, in need of only a little more adz work to remove the last of the char.

  He had made the boat for First Wife’s oldest son, a man in his own right and trying to earn the respect of the village elders so he could claim a wife. A great lump of sorrow wedged itself into Cedar’s throat. What would happen to her husband and that boy-man? To all the good people of this village? Was it fair that their desire to live peacefully would mean their deaths? And what about the boat her husband had worked so hard to build? Made in honored ways, it would carry good luck for anyone who used it, perhaps even a Bear-god warrior who did not know enough to worship the sea gods.

  In considering those sea gods, Cedar suddenly remembered the small carvings her husband honored above all things. He kept them near the hearth, hanging from the support rafters on braided strings of whale sinew. They had been blessed by priests, and carried great powers. She could not leave them to fall into the hands of the Bear-god warriors. What chance did the Boat People have if those Bear-god men stole more power for themselves, even the power of the sea?

  A scream came from the beach, and a terrible cry that sounded like a bear roaring. Almost, Cedar turned to run, but again, she thought of the sea god carvings, and so she quickly set Day Soon into Fire Mountain Man’s boat, placed the pack beside the child.

  “Be quiet, Daughter. Stay in the boat until I come back to get you,” she said, and knew that the girl—now three summers old—would do as she asked. Cedar pulled out the deerskin blankets and covered Day Soon and the pack, then she ran back into the village, crept on hands and knees to her husband’s iori, and once inside cut down the sea god carvings.

  When Water Gourd became old, his eyes grew too dim for him to aim his harpoon. Soon after, his hands knotted, and he could no longer work the adz to build boats, and his legs were too weak to chase the deer that roamed the mountains. Had the choice been his own, he would have claimed a place with the elders, giving out advice to those who had not lived long enough to become wise. But wisdom had never been one of his gifts, and now, in his old age, all he had to offer were his strong shoulders. Each day, tottering on wobbly legs, he made the journey to the spring that bubbled sweet water at the base of the second hill from the village. Each day he took empty bottle gourds, filled them, and brought them back—cool, wet bulbs sprouting from the ends of the nutmeg yoke he had carved especially to fit the curves and hollows of his ancient shoulders.

  His name had once been Tree Hawk, but that had been long ago, and now they called him Water Gourd, so that only the oldest in the village knew who he truly was. Only the elders remembered when he was young and strong, the father of four sons, now all dead. Most people in the village knew him only as uncle to Flower Root, and she was lazy and not worth much.

  He filled the last water gourd, plugged it with a cedar stopper, and tied it in place on his yoke, five gourds on each end, jostling and bumping together like fat yellow bees. Sometimes he brought a boy with him, to help lift the yoke to his shoulders, but this day the boy had been mending his father’s fish nets, so Water Gourd had come alone. Like a woman, that boy was, Water Gourd thought, foolish and weak. He had told the boy stories of his own youth, how he had lifted stones, carried them up the hills to build the muscles in his arms and legs, how any young man, if he wasn’t too lazy to look, could see the piles of stones Water Gourd had carried, still there, still stacked, grown over with grasses and moss, proof of Water Gourd’s ambition and fortitude.

  But the boy seemed to derive no inspiration from Water Gourd’s stories, and Water Gourd had become disgusted with him. It was just as well he had stayed on the beach today, just as well that Water Gourd didn’t have to put up with him.

  He set the ends of his yoke on two piles of flat rocks he had stacked for that purpose and, crouching to the level of the yoke, backed himself underneath. He settled it against his neck, flexed his shoulders, then painfully straightened his aching knees.

  If the sea gods allowed him to live through another year, he would most likely have to reduce his gourds to four on each end. It worried him to think about that. Four had never been a lucky number for him. The birth of his fourth son had killed his favorite wife, and the child had chosen to follow her spirit four days later.

  He himself had had four wives, the fourth so vicious of tongue that he had celebrated rather than mourned her death. Four gourds were not good. Perhaps he could find smaller gourds and still carry five.

  He walked slowly, and the sun heated the top of his head until sweat trickled from the edges of his hair, tracking a route through the gullies and furrows of his face. The gourds sweated as well, as if it were difficult work hanging from a yoke. Water Gourd kept his eyes away from them, for the drops of water on their sides always made his mouth pucker in longing.

  Though it was not yet summer, grass already grew tall on each side of the path. Until he broke over the top of the first hill, he could see nothing except green, but he had taken some time to chop away the growth at the hill’s crest, so that in his walking he could get a breath of wind from the sea.

  He stopped, straightened as best as he could, and lifted his eyes to the blue of water and sky.

  Ah ee, he had been a hunter once. Ah ee, how his muscles had bulged under his skin. Any woman, he could have taken as wife; any father would have been glad to call him marriage-son; every mother had longed for the grandchildren that would come from his loins. He had eaten well then, too. Whale and squid and sea urchin, meat of deer and any manner of bird. Chestnut cakes, the young women made for him, each hoping to win his favor. Ah ee, life had been good.

  He sighed, and his memories brought a film of water to coat his eyes, clearing his vision long enough so he could see the separation between ocean and sky, long enough for him to place a flotilla of short, low-slung boats just offshore. He blinked, sure his old eyes were seeing foolishness. What man among the Boat People would claim such poor dugouts? He would be a laughingstock. Water Gourd pursed his lips in ridicule. Even he—his hands knotted and curled with age—even he could make a better boat than those he was seeing.

  Then suddenly he knew who was in those boats, and the knowledge nearly dropped him to his knees. He gripped the yoke as if a tight hold could save him, and he spun on the path, intending to make his way past the spring to the caves hidden just under the crest of the third hill.

  But although he was used to the weight of the yoke on the uphill climb, the filled gourds added more than he could bear. He lost his footing and tipped backwards, fell slowly, as if in a dream. He landed on his back, his arms still flung forward over the yoke, and, like a turtle, could not right himself. He slid on the grass until he was near the bottom of the first hill, within crawling distance of the village. He lay still for a moment to catch his breath, then extricated himself from gourds and yoke. One gourd had broken, and to preserve the precious water that still remained inside, the old man cupped the largest shard in his hands and drank.

  The water, cold from the spring, renewed his strength, and, leaving his yoke on the ground, Water Gourd crept forward to the back wall of an iori and pressed himself tightly against the chestnut bark siding.

  He heard a gasp from wit
hin, then a woman’s voice as she babbled and begged. He knew the voice. It belonged to Fire Mountain Man’s second wife, Cedar. She was young, that woman, and pretty, with smooth, fair skin and tiny teeth. He pried at the bark of the wall and tried to see inside.

  A large hairy man stood over her, a short thrusting lance in one of his hands.

  “Bear-god,” Water Gourd whispered, and shuddered, remembering stories he had heard Cedar tell.

  On hands and feet he began to sneak away, but then he remembered his yoke. If he left it there, the gourds still wet, they would know he was near. By following his path through the grasses, they would have no difficulty finding him. If he were young, he would welcome a chance to fight, to kill men who would attack a peaceful village, who would force women as the Bear-god man now forced Fire Mountain Man’s wife.

  Even with his old ears, Water Gourd could hear her groans of pain. He considered going back to help her, but what good would that do? The Bear-god man had a lance, and Water Gourd had no weapon save a small knife sheathed at his wrist. He would die, and probably could do nothing to help the woman. Perhaps the Bear-god man would only use her and let her go. Of course, most likely Cedar, so used, would take her own life in shame rather than return to her husband.

  Ah ee, why try to help a woman who was already dead?

  Water Gourd picked up his yoke, slung it over his shoulders, and crept away through the grasses, weaving his steps in stops and starts so any attacker who might decide to follow would think he was animal rather than man. At the top of the hill, he started down the worn path again, his breath wheezing in his throat until he had to stop. He would never make it to the caves if he tried to carry his yoke.