by Jean Johnson
Mirages might grow or shrink, but they rarely strode so purposefully. Clad in a playa-caked poncho draped over his shoulders and a kilt wrapped around his hips, sandals on his feet and the straps for some sort of carrying pack hooked around his shoulders, this apparition was no mirage. Setting down her fan, Nandjed stuck her little fingers in her mouth, angled them just so, and trilled a sharp, loud whistle. It echoed off the rocks of the valley. Papit woke with a snort, then a grunt, sitting up so he could scrub at his face and scowl at her for interrupting his nap.
The figure slowed briefly at the sharp signal, but otherwise didn’t stop approaching at that steady, unflagging pace. The heat of the sun beating down on his head and leather-draped shoulders didn’t seem to deter the long-haired man. Judging by how much dust coated his body, he had been traveling at that steady pace all day. He didn’t seem threatening, exactly—not enough to pull her sling from the cord wrapped around her leather kilt, nor to reach for one of the rocks piled nearby—but he was not like any man the old weaver had seen growing up around her.
For one, his face was rather round in shape, rather than properly oval, or even rectangular like Papit’s northlands father—this stranger looked as brown as Chapa under the dust coating him, but the shapes were all wrong to be a northlander. For another, the closer he got, the more her impression of great height grew. When she measured him against a nearby cactus he passed, she realized he stood taller than even the people of the Red Skin Tribe, who had come to the Red Rocks four years ago, wanting them to mine the southwestern stones that were sacred to war.
The third reason that made her confused: he looked familiar. Nandjed couldn’t remember where she had seen such things before, but then she was getting old, a great-grandmother who had seen many faces come and go. And the fourth reason he unnerved her: he had strange, metal-tipped sticks attached to the belt girding his waist.
Though all of him had been coated in the dust of many days’ travel, the strange sticks still managed to look as glossy as water under their coating of dust, and as black as night-shadow. As black as his hair under all the road dust, both gleamed with a slightly blue, almost charcoal hue in the sunlight, rather than the reddish undertones of normal hair and normal wood, never mind blackened wood. Charcoal did not gleam like water, however.
Papit, rubbing the sleep-sand from his eyes, finally noticed the approaching stranger. He started and scrabbled for his spear. Snatching it up, he shoved to his feet, braced the weapon in his hands, and snapped, “Who are you? What do you want?”
The man slowed, stopped, and croaked a single word. “Water.” Two words, actually; after a few seconds, he added, “Please.”
Papit eyed the stranger, and glanced at Nandjed. She shrugged blithely, gesturing at the young warrior to decide. As much as it would be proper to be hospitable, the Red Skin Tribe did not like strangers. Besides, guarding the mountain pass was Papit’s job, not hers. He had to decide what to do about the man in their midst.
“Your name, and your tribe, and your home,” Papit ordered. “You tell me them. And why are you here?”
The tall man stared back a long moment, then said, “I am from the lands of the Flame Sea Tribe, far to the southwest. I am headed home.”
Papit frowned, and poked the air with the iron tip of his spear. “How can you be from the southwest? You are headed southwest, but you didn’t walk this way coming from your home! I would have known of it, and remembered you.”
The stranger stared, blinked, and slumped his shoulders. Those dark brown eyes rolled upward, beseeching the anima of the sky for patience with the sort of disgusted disbelief that convinced Nandjed he was not an enemy. An enemy probably would have backhanded the boy for his idiocy.
Lifting his hands, the man gestured as he spoke. “I went due north when I left the Flame Sea lands. I went through the mountains at a point to the east of here. I explored the jungles to the north, and detoured to the west before turning south again. I met the people of the Black Rocks Tribe, and they told me about this pass when I said it was time for me to return home. I walked in a loop. I did not have to come this exact way when I went north.”
The biting edge in his tone made Papit flush with embarrassment for not having considered that. Deciding it was time to intervene, Nandjed reached for her waterskin. “I have water, stranger. If the Black Rocks told you about this pass, then you are safe to cross it. But there is a price for the water.”
“What?” the man asked her, returning to the short, clipped way of speaking he had first used.
“Your name, stranger?” she replied pointedly. “I am Nandjed. That is Papit. You have reached the lands of the Red Rocks Tribe, and the Red Skin Tribe.”
That made the stranger frown. “Red Skin?”
“. . . Name?” she asked, sloshing the waterskin a little.
“You will not like my name,” he warned her, tipping his head slightly. That made his dusty black locks slide across his shoulders.
“Tell us anyway,” Papit ordered, still wary.
Those dark eyes, their lids strangely flat compared to what should normally be, slanted toward the youth for a moment before he answered. “Ban.”
Papit sucked in a breath and lifted his spear a little higher.
Nandjed only huffed. She held out the skin. “I am not afraid of anyone named Death. I am too old, and have heard of far stranger things. Go on. Take the water and drink, before my arm falls off from its weight.”
A strange huffing sound escaped the man; it sounded like a rusty laugh. Mouth quirked on one side, he ignored the threat of Papit and his spear in favor of detouring toward her. Accepting the proffered waterskin, he untied the thong sealing it shut and drank half the contents in several strong gulps.
Standing as close as he did gave Nandjed a chance to examine his garments. He wore roughly spun and woven cloth of the sort the northlanders liked to wear, made from plants they found in their jungle homes. The sandals had leather soles that had been worn down and patched several times simply by applying a new layer to the old, and the lacings up to his knees were made from two different thicknesses of cord, suggesting they had been replaced at different times.
The big leather bag on his back looked old, the straps frayed along the edges, and it held several large, lumpy items inside. Based on her seven surviving children and all their grandchildren, Nandjed thought it surely had to weigh as much as a child of thirteen or fourteen summers, yet the man named Death stood next to her as easily as if he hadn’t hauled such a heavy weight through the heat of high summer and the rough mountain pass behind him.
Tightly rewrapping the neck of the waterskin, he handed it back to her with a little bow. “Thank you. I ran out of water earlier. The lake the Black Rocks said would be found at the halfway point had dried fully to dust by the time I got there.
Papit blinked. “The lake . . . ? That lake is four days’ walk from here. You have been without water all that time? How are you alive?”
“Are you going to vomit back out all that water I just gave you, because your stomach has shrunk?” Nandjed asked more pointedly. “If so, don’t aim it at me.”
The corner of Ban’s mouth quirked up, and he pointed at her. “. . . I like you. No, I will not vomit. I am tougher than that.”
When he pointed at her, Nandjed noticed something. His arm looked like someone had painted fine lines under the dirt, fine but faded and half-hidden by the deep tan of his skin as well as the beige playa dust coating everything. A really tall man with painted skin named Ban . . . She vaguely recalled hearing of such a man, but couldn’t remember when or where. Nandjed opened her mouth to ask, but the man started and looked sharply off to her right, where the crack in the wall sat that led to the sheltered caves the northernmost members of Red Rocks Tribe called home.
Twisting on her grass-stuffed cushion, she fluttered her palm leaf fan and peered through the dessicated
bushes. Moving bodies came into view, carrying slings and metal-tipped spears. She recognized the dark skin of Chapa, Papit’s father, and the woman at his back was Ralit; she had a bow, not just a sling. Damek, too, with his curly hair, and his mate Hassa, who had even curlier hair. They peered through the bushes and the cacti, spreading out so that they could each get a clear view of the newcomer.
“Papit, who is that?” Chapa called out, his voice thick with the accent of the northlands language.
“He says his name is Ban,” Papit called back to his father. “He says the Black Rocks told him to use this pass.”
“Is he named that because he’s almost dead?” his mother asked, peering through the leafless thorns and branches of an acacia bush. “Taking that pass, he should be dead from lack of water.”
“He looks quite alive to me,” Nandjed told the younger woman. She gestured with her fan, introducing everyone. “That is Papit over there with the spear, and the speakers are his mother, Ralit, and his father, Chapa. Those two are Damek and Hassa, and I am Nandjed. You have reached the land of the Red Rocks Tribe. Everyone, this is Ban.”
Damek moved forward, his iron-tipped spear held level. “Why are you here?”
“I am on my way home.”
“Where did you travel, and where is your home?” Damek asked next.
The tall stranger gestured behind him in an arc toward the northeast and northwest. “I started at the Flame Sea in the heart of the soft sand desert southeast of here. I went north through the mountain passes around the Brown Cotton Tribe, traveled through the Brinnish jungles from the tribes of the Yellow Snake to the Red Spider Flower, then crossed through the Double Chalk Pass to the Black Rocks Tribe. Now I am on my way back home.” He eyed the group. “I passed through this way many years ago, when the leader of the Red Rocks was a woman named Taje Ulanni.”
“She still rules,” Nandjed told him, fanning herself.
Papit snorted. “No, she doesn’t.”
“Child!” his father chided. “Have respect!”
“Everyone knows her grandson Ulec rules, now. Or sort of rules,” Papit corrected himself. “Ulec tells Taje Ulanni what to say, and the Red Skins tell Ulec what to say.”
“Are these Red Skins a new tribe?” Ban asked, glancing around the group. “I had not heard of one in the area, last time I came through.”
“They have been around for four years,” Damek admitted slowly. “But where they came from before that, they just said from a place very far away.”
“They are all taller than me,” Chapa added, gesturing at himself and then Damek to indicate how he stood a thumb-length taller than the younger man. He gestured at the stranger. “But none of them are as tall as you.”
Nandjed peered at the black sticks stuck in the stranger’s waistband. There was something familiar about the black material . . . something . . . Ban. Years ago . . . She gasped, and fluttered her palm leaf fan. “Thirty years ago! Damek was still newly born. You came then, in clothes as black as soot!” Blinking rapidly she gestured with her free hand. “You had clothes that were all black, soft and tight, and like nothing I had seen before, or since. At least, not until the Red Skins came!”
“This man is over thirty years old?” Hassa asked, brow quirked skeptically. “He doesn’t even look thirty!”
“He is! He even has the same painted skin under all that dust,” Nandjed asserted, flicking her fan at the semi-stranger in their midst. “All that desert dirt must be filling in your wrinkles, young man.”
“I need more water, and I would like some food,” Ban stated, ignoring her comment. “I can exchange news from the Black Rocks Tribe in payment.”
“What about the things in that bag?” Hassa asked, eyeing his backpack speculatively. “What do you have in there?”
“Most of what I carry are seeds from the northlands,” the tall male stated. “They are not for trade.”
“Why not?” Papit asked. Now that the youth was awake, he took his guarding of the pass seriously, and had not lowered his spear.
His demand made the dusty traveler roll his brown eyes skyward once more. “Because they are seeds. I am taking them home so my people will grow them into plants. That is what you do with seeds.”
“What seeds did you bring?” Chapa asked, his gaze sharpening.
Ban rattled off a set of syllables that made no sense to Nandjed, other than that it sounded like Chapa when he spoke the tongue of his birth tribe. When Chapa asked a question in that language and received a fluent reply, Nandjed let it all soar over her head. She knew a few words in the language used by Chapa’s people, but not nearly enough to follow what they said now. Instead, she amused herself by watching their faces, the way each man gestured.
Ban could be eloquent, she decided, though he often favored clipped replies. Every gesture was graceful in its economy and precision. Chapa flicked his fingers a lot more often, let his arm carry his torso around a bit, and eventually sounded pleading. He even clasped his hands together, begging for something. Finally, the stranger in their midst sighed heavily and nodded, agreeing to whatever it was, and Chapa muttered the words of gratitude that were among the few the old woman knew.
“. . . What was that about?” Damek asked when it looked like their conversation was done. “I only understood a few words of that.”
“I have bartered to give him friendship rights—food, clothing, even enough water to bathe,” Chapa told them. “In exchange, he will give me five seeds each of various plants, so that I can grow some of the foods and seasoning spices that my birth people know.”
“Four seeds,” Ban corrected.
Chapa winced, and offered a smile. “. . . Will you blame me for trying?”
“I can suggest you make the journey yourself to get more,” the taller male replied. “But I will suggest you do not try it in high summer.”
His quip provoked some chuckling and good-natured teasing of Chapa by the others. Papit eyed the adults and asked, “So, he is being allowed to stay?”
“Just for the night. I have pledged him food, water, leather and cord for his sandals, and an escort in the morning to the far end of our lands. He also has a promise of shelter for tomorrow night, and food and water for the next part of his trip,” his father stated. “Damek, can you take him down the valley tomorrow morning? I know you wanted to hunt in that direction. Lopik promised me a sheltering the next time I went that far, and I will have him give it to this man instead, in exchange for those seeds.”
The other hunter nodded. “I can do that—here, come with me,” he added to the traveler in their midst. “I will take you to a place where you can get out of the hot sun, and bathe. Playa dust is not like other dirt. It makes the skin red and sore if it is not washed off thoroughly.”
“Thank you,” Ban said.The tall, dust-encrusted male followed Damek around the meat-drying racks, heading toward the half-hidden entrance to their relatively cool underground homes.
Leaning back against her tree-propped cushion, Nandjed fanned herself, watching them go. Hassa hesitated, then asked, “Do you reallyrecognize this man?”
Nandjed nodded. “He talks like himself, moves like himself . . . The clothes are different, but it has been around thirty summers. Everything we wear falls apart after thirty summers, or long before. It is the man called Ban, from the Flame Sea Tribe,” she asserted, fluttering her palmleaf fan. “I look forward to talking with him about old memories when the meat has dried and I come in for the night.”
“I don’t know how you can stand the heat of midday,” Hassa sighed. “Even in the shade, I feel like it is hard to breathe.”
“When you are as old as I am, it will feel good to your joints. Go on, go into the caves,” she urged. “Wait—he drank half my water. Bring me a full waterskin?”
“Of course.I’ll be back soon.” Nodding politely, the younger woman moved off, lea
ving Nandjed and Papit to resume watching the lack of movement through the hottest part of the day, up here at the northwestern end of their territory.
***
Ban eyed the narrow ravine around him. The hot sun could not reach all the way to the bottom, and the stream that splashed along the water-carved channel cooled and moistened the air. Damek had taken his scrubbed and rinsed clothes up to a spot where sunlight could dry them quickly, but only after eyeing the stranger’s heavily tattooed hide in wide-eyed wonder. The taller male could not fault him for staring.
He knew his tattoos were unlike anything these people had seen; the only version they had was a crude system of cutting the skin and rubbing charcoal into the wounds so that they scarred black instead of pink. His were far more sophisticated, involving special inks infused with herbs associated with certain magical properties, and bound by spells into his personal energies. Energies that did not mesh perfectly with the anima, the magic, of this place, but that still empowered him beyond the ordinary.
Each tattoo had a specific function. The black scrollwork encircling his navel empowered all the others; it came in two variations, a strong version that traded the owner’s fertility for the ability to channel all that creative energy into magical power, and a weaker one that bound the owner’s already inherent magics into instant activation in very specific ways. His navel tattoo fell into the latter category, for he had been born a very, very long time ago as a natural mage, and had no need of the stronger kind.
The leafy, flowered vine climbing up his spine healed his injuries. It requried no effort on his part, nor even an affinity for healing magics. Some mages where he came from had no such affinity, and Ban had been one. That vine had saved him multiple times . . . and plagued him, keeping him alive in situations that had driven him mad for a while. If he hadn’t had that tattoo to heal the irritation caused by all that alkaline playa dust, he would have been in far worse shape.
