Tanajin went on. “They saw the cloud in the south. I told them about the hairless people. I said I knew the people existed. I had seen them. But I hadn’t seen any islands fall out of the sky. That news came from Nia the Smith, I told them.”
“You told them my name?”
Tanajin made the gesture that meant “don’t worry.” “I said you came from the east. They do not realize you are the woman who loved a man.”
“That’s good,” said Nia.
She continued to work on Tanajin’s belongings. The weather continued bright and hot. Late summer weather. The ground was dry, even close to the river. On the plain everything would be covered with dust. The village—traveling—would send up great dark clouds.
At night many arrows flashed out of the pattern of stars called the Great Wagon. That was ordinary. Those arrows came at the end of every summer. The Little Boys Who Never Grow Up were riding in their mother’s wagon, shooting their bows. Aiya! When she caught them!
Nia finished with Tanajin’s pots and began on her own gear: bridle bits, the rings on saddles, knives that needed sharpening, awls that would not punch through anything. Tanajin had a coil of iron wire. Nia made needles.
Now and then she saw clouds of the new kind: long and narrow. Usually they were in the south or southwest. They formed rapidly like the first cloud, and they were the same shape, but they didn’t rise to the peak of the sky. Instead they were horizontal. It was easiest to see them in the evening. The sun lit them from below. They shone like colored banners: red, yellow, purple, orange, pink. Sometimes Nia thought she could make out the glint of metal. The thing that glinted was always at the front end of the cloud, at the place where the cloud began.
She worked and thought. After a while she got an idea. It seemed crazy to her. There was only one thing to do with a crazy idea. Tell it. Only men kept quiet when something was bothering them. Or women who were doing or thinking something that was shameful.
Nia spoke to Tanajin.
“The clouds are in the south, where the hairless people are. They are new, and the clouds are new. Therefore they are responsible.”
“Maybe.”
“I told you about their boats. The boats leave a trail in the water. The trail is white. It forms rapidly and then vanishes. Maybe the clouds are trails as well.”
“In the sky?” said Tanajin. “Don’t be ridiculous. First you said these people are able to fling stones around like demons. Now you say they can float in the sky like spirits. How likely is any of this?”
Nia made the gesture of concession. “Not very.”
“You have spent too much time alone, Nia. You are getting crazy ideas.”
Nia made the gesture that meant “yes.”
Travelers came from the west and built a signal fire. Tanajin went to get them: five large morose women. Their tunics had brightly colored vertical stripes. Their saddlebags were different from anything Nia had ever seen before: large baskets made of some kind of plant fiber and striped horizontally.
The women spoke with thick accents. They belonged to the Finely Woven Basket People, they said. A boat had come to their village out of the sky.
“Huh!” said Tanajin.
“I say it was a boat because it carried people.” The travel leader spoke. She was the largest of the women with a belly that made her look pregnant. But pregnant women did not usually travel. Maybe she was fat. Nia didn’t know a polite way to ask.
“It didn’t look like any boat I have seen. It looked like the birds that our neighbors make to hang on standards. The birds are gold. Their bodies are fat. Their wings are long and narrow. They have eyes made of various kinds of crystal.”
Another woman said, “This thing—this boat—had two large eyes in front that shone like crystal. There were other eyes—little ones—that went along the sides. Hu! It was peculiar.”
The travel leader frowned.
The other woman made the gesture that was an apology for interrupting.
The travel leader said, “The people in the boat had almost no fur. One of them spoke the language of gifts, though very badly. This person said they wanted to come and visit and exchange stories.”
Tanajin looked at Nia. “You weren’t crazy.”
“What does that mean?” asked the travel leader.
“There have been clouds in the sky. This woman said they were caused by boats that belonged to the hairless people.”
“How did you know?” asked a woman.
Nia said, “Finish your story. I will tell you later.”
“We didn’t know what to do,” said the travel leader. “Our shamaness decided to ask for advice. She sent us to the Amber People to ask for their opinion. Another group has gone to the Iron People and another to the People of Fur and Tin.
“We have a quarrel going with the Gold People. They’re our closest neighbors. They have tongues like knives and they like to make up satiric poetry. We aren’t going to ask them for anything.”
“Also,” said another woman, “they live in the high mountains. We don’t like going there. Hu! It is dark! The trail goes up and down!”
“We are people of the plain,” said the leader. “We like to be able to see all the way to the horizon.”
Nia made the gesture of agreement. “The Iron People have agreed to let the hairless people visit. I don’t know what the Amber People have decided.”
“That is how you know,” said the travel leader. “You have seen these people.”
“Yes,” said Nia. “But I had not seen the kind of boat you describe.”
The women asked questions. Nia said as little as possible. She didn’t want to describe the long journey from the east. She didn’t want to explain why she hadn’t been living with her own people.
“It’s obvious that you know more than you are telling,” the travel leader said finally. “That’s your decision and not our problem. We have been sent to the Amber People.”
The next day the women continued on their journey. Nia finished working at the forge.
“I’ve been waiting for this,” said Tanajin.
Nia made the gesture of inquiry.
“Ulzai keeps appearing in my dreams. He speaks urgently. I don’t understand him. Usually he is wet. That ought to mean he has drowned, but I don’t know for certain. What does he want? Why is he bothering me?”
Nia made the gesture of ignorance.
“I am going to make a new raft and float downriver. I’ll ask about him in the village of the hairless people. Maybe they have found his body.
“After that I’ll keep going. There is a village on the river below the lake. The people there never move. Their houses are wood. They are always in them.” Tanajin paused.
“Their gift is a certain kind of very large fish. They smoke it and pickle it. They also preserve the eggs of the fish and the stuff that the male fish produce. Their shamaness is famous for her wisdom. I’m going to ask her to explain my dreams. Maybe I need a ceremony of propitiation.”
“That could be,” said Nia. “What about the crossing?”
“People can do what they used to do before I came.”
“The crossing has been your gift.”
“You will continue traveling. That’s the kind of person you are. If I stay here alone, I’ll go crazy. I’ll find a new gift—maybe among the Fish Egg People, maybe farther south.”
Nia helped Tanajin build the raft. It took five days. When they were finished she said, “Teach me how to paddle.”
“Why?” asked Tanajin.
“I think I’ll stay here for a while. When people come, I’ll take them across. I’ll explain that you have gone, and that I will be leaving soon. The news will get around. People will know to bring axes with them.”
Tanajin made the gesture of agreement.
She stayed another fifteen days. They spent most of their waking time on the water. Nia learned how to swing the big heavy paddle and what lay under the surface of the river. There were islands th
at only appeared in the very worst dry years, but they were always there and the raft might get caught on one. There were logs—more than any person could count. Some floated on top of the water. Others floated underneath. Some had gotten caught in the mud of the river bottom and stood upright like living trees, their branches reaching toward the surface. Others were held less tightly by the mud and swung back and forth in the water.
“Like reeds in the wind,” said Tanajin. “Or a tree that is starting to break.”
“Aiya!” said Nia.
“Every kind of log is dangerous. If the raft gets caught, you may not be able to get free. Never let a rope trail. Always carry a knife. Always keep an eye on the surface. If there are swirls and eddies—avoid that place!”
“There is more to this than I realized,” said Nia.
Tanajin barked. “You people in the north are so ignorant! You think the river is like the plain. You think that everything that matters is on the surface, where any fool can see it.”
Nia kept her teeth clenched together. A teacher always had the right to at least a few insults. Everyone knew that. It was true among all peoples.
Finally Tanajin said, “You aren’t skillful yet, and you don’t know enough about the river, but I think you’ll be able to manage. I’ll leave you now.”
Nia made the gesture of acknowledgment.
The next morning Tanajin piled her belongings on the new raft. Nia helped push the raft out into the river. Tanajin climbed on and made the gesture of farewell.
Nia waved in answer.
The raft floated out. Tanajin began to swing the paddle. Nia watched. The woman grew smaller and smaller. At last she was gone. The raft became a dot on the wide and shining river. Nia shaded her eyes. The raft was gone.
She moved her belongings into the empty tent, but she didn’t sleep in it. It smelled of Tanajin, and the walls were braced with pieces of wood. They were too solid. A proper house ought to shift in the wind—not much, but enough so the people inside knew what was happening on the plain.
Every evening she took a blanket out front. She lay down by the fire and looked up. She began to notice things.
One was a light that moved like a moon, but was the wrong color: a silvery white. It followed a new trail, different from any of the old moons. Night after night it crossed above her. She had no idea what it was. Had one of the Two Lost Women come back?
There was a new star, too. It appeared in the same place every evening: at the center of the sky. The other stars moved around it. It did not move at all.
There were other lights: red and white and green. For the most part they were in the south, close to the horizon. They moved rapidly in all directions.
She became uneasy. It was one thing for the hairless people to make a new kind of cloud. There were a lot of different kinds of clouds, and they were always changing. One more kind wasn’t likely to cause trouble. But a new star! A new moon! Lights that wandered like bugs! Here! There! Up! Down!
Smoke rose on the far side of the river. She went over. A man waited there. A big fellow with iron-gray fur.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Where is Tanajin?” He spoke with an accent she did not recognize.
“She left. I am taking care of the crossing.”
“Huh!” the man said.
She took him across the river, along with two bowhorns. He gave her salt in a leather bag. The leather was thin and soft. She did not know what kind of animal it came from. The man did not explain who he was or why he was traveling through the land of the Iron People. Nia decided not to ask.
More days passed. The new moon kept traveling over. The new star remained at the center of the sky. Every few days she saw another one of the long clouds.
The Basket Women returned. Their leader said the Amber People had not been a lot of help. “They are busy performing ceremonies of aversion and propitiation. Something has gone wrong. They wouldn’t tell us what, except to say the Trickster was behind it.
“This is a spirit we don’t know about, though he sounds a bit like our Bird-faced Woman. A troublemaker! A sneak and liar! Though I have to say we owe a lot to the Bird-faced Woman. She gave us fire and taught us how to weave baskets.”
Another woman said, “We shouldn’t be too grateful. She convinced the First People that there was nothing wrong with incest. And she let the small black bug of death loose in the world.”
The travel leader frowned. “The Amber People kept going on and on about this spirit. This Trickster. They told us the hairless people are not the problem. The Trickster is the problem. He is the one who is making changes in the sky.”
“Have the hairless people paid a visit there?” asked Nia. She pointed east.
The travel leader made the gesture that meant “no.” “I’m not certain they believed us when we told them about the hairless people and the boat that was able to fly. Maybe they thought we were liars, like the Trickster.”
“Aiya!” said Nia. She took them across the river, then went back.
By this time the forest along the river had finished changing color. The trees were orange and yellow. The reeds in the marshes were red. Flocks of birds went overhead like clouds.
Nia began to worry about food. She was running out. Winter was coming. She made fish traps and set them in the river. Then she went into the forest, cut wood, and made a smoking rack. That was the safest way to preserve fish and meat. The smoke would hide the food aroma. The animals in the forest would not come looking for something to eat.
She made traps to set in the forest. Then she made a bow. It was the weak kind that people in the east used. But she did not have the materials to make a bow the right way out of layers of horn, and she wasn’t a bow maker.
How could men survive alone? A woman needed an entire village full of people with different kinds of knowledge.
“Well,” she told herself. “I know it is possible. I lived on my own before—except for Enshi, and he wasn’t all that much help. I can do it again.”
She gathered food. Clouds came out of the west, gray and solid-looking. They dropped rain on her. The rain was cold and heavy. Leaves came off the trees. They lay on the ground in the forest and floated past on the river. Red. Yellow. Orange. Pink. Purple.
The flocks of birds became less frequent. The bugs were almost gone.
Day and night she tended the smoking fire. Gray smoke twisted up into the gray sky. No animals came out of the forest to find out if she had anything edible. In this she was lucky. This was the time of year when every kind of thing looked for food—though not with desperation. Desperation would come later with the snow.
One afternoon Nia was in front of the tent, cleaning a groundbird. She cut the belly open and reached in, pulling out the guts. One of her bowhorns whistled: a sign of warning. She looked up. A rider was approaching, coming up the trail along the river. Nia stood up, holding the bloody guts. They were still attached to the bird, and when she stood she lifted the bird off the ground. For a moment it dangled at the end of a rope of guts. Then the rope broke. The bird fell. The rider reined his animal.
He was big and broad through the shoulders. His fur gleamed, even though the sky was dark and gray. His tunic was yellow, covered with embroidery. He wore gold bracelets and a gold fish-pendant that hung from a necklace of amber beads. “I heard the old crossing-woman was gone. The new one looks as if she belongs to the Iron People. She doesn’t speak much and tells nothing about herself.”
“Who can have told you this, Inzara?”
“The man whose gift is salt.” Inzara dismounted. “Why don’t you finish what you are doing, then wash your hands?”
He led his animal in back of the tent. She cleaned the bird and washed her hands in the river.
Inzara returned, carrying his saddlebags.
“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be in the Winter Land, protecting your territory?”
“My brothers will take care of it for me. It doesn’t matter this time of year
, anyway.”
She spitted the bird and set it up over the cooking fire. Inzara crouched down. Aiya! He was big, even resting on his heels.
“It’s pretty obvious the world is changing. There is a new star in the sky and a new moon. A while back a young man came out of the village. I stopped him and spoke with him before I sent him on his way. He told me people had come from the far west, carrying their provisions in baskets and bringing a crazy story. Visitors came to them riding on a bird made out of metal. The visitors had no hair. The people from the west wanted advice. But my people were busy. They have been quarreling and performing ceremonies ever since they came to the Ropemaker’s island. The guardian of the tower was dead. The tower itself was damaged.”
“We did not touch the tower,” said Nia.
“Birds or the wind,” said Inzara. “In any case, the clans have been accusing one another of bad thoughts and magic. This is what the young man said. I could explain what really happened, but who listens to men about such things?” He paused. “I thought the world is changing, and it is obvious who is behind all the changes. The people without hair, the oracle, and Nia.
“The man who brings the salt came. He told me about the new woman at the river crossing. I thought, that is almost certainly Nia. How many strange women can there be, wandering around the plain?”
“That’s good thinking, but why did you bother? I don’t think I’m responsible for any of the changes, and if I am, there is nothing I can do about them now.”
“Are the hairless people responsible?” asked Inzara.
“Maybe. I think so.”
“And you are friends with them.”
“Maybe.”
“Tell me where you will be in the spring.”
Nia looked up, surprised. “Why?”
“You have a lot of luck—more than any woman I’ve ever heard of. I’m not certain what kind of luck it is. At times it seems more bad than good. But it is certainly powerful, and there is no question about my luck. It is always good.
“If you had a child, and I was the father—or Ara—or Tzoon, think of the luck the child would have! Think of the power!”
A Woman of the Iron People Page 52
