Eric Brown - Rites of Passage

He hit me in the face and I almost blacked out, and he dived upon me and pinned me to the ground. He stared around him, searching for a weapon with which to finish me off for good. He reached out for an old human bone, grabbed it and raised it above his head. He stared at me in hatred and swung his improvised club. I raised a hand in hopeless defence, and the bone cracked painfully against my forearm.

I gasped and saw movement behind him as Nohma approached, lifting something high above her head. Kenda raised the club again, aiming for my head — then screamed, his mouth wide in pain. I stared as a length of splintered bone erupted through his chest and drenched me with his lifeblood.

I tipped him off me, climbed to my feet and approached Nohma, who stood wide-eyed and staring down at what she had done. I pulled her to me as Kenda’s eyes glazed over in death.

“I… I killed him,” Nohma said, staring at his corpse.

“You saved my life,” I told her.

I led her from the amphitheatre, aware of flickering movement on the periphery of my vision. I wondered what the blackened beings had made of this, the latest human drama to be played out in this ancient, ruined venue.

“I see them,” Nohma murmured. “I saw them earlier, but I thought I was hallucinating.”

We huddled in the shade of the excoriated dome and held each other, and I described what had happened in the V-shaped dwelling down the slope, and how the tiny blackened beings had helped me. We ate crab meat and drank from the black column, and as twilight descended and the sun sank, we left the dome without a backward glance at Kenda’s corpse or a single word to commemorate his passing.

We made our way out into the cooling night and set off on the journey home.

Our return trek was not without drama.

That dawn, as we approached the cave on the far side of the ravine, we were attacked by two giant crabs. I despatched the first by tipping it from a high rock with my own shell, but in doing so I fell and twisted my ankle. I was entirely at the mercy of the second crab until Nohma, screaming in rage, attacked the advancing crab with a rock the size of her head and managed to crush its mandibles; then together we beat it off and retreated to the cave.

We slept the day and at twilight hurried outside and sliced the cooked meat of the dead crab and stored it in our backpacks. Now we would have sufficient food for the journey home, and the sweet water from the black column.

The following evening passed without incident, and at sunrise Nohma marvelled at the qualities of the black column. We were sitting in the entrance of a high cave, watching the dawn light creep across the valley far below.

“This is miraculous,” she said, tipping the column at her lips and taking a mouthful of the fluid. “It feels, Par, like drink and food combined.” She stared at the column. “And another thing. Think about it, Par — if it were water in here, then it would be empty by now, wouldn’t it? I mean, A gourd holds far more water than this thing, and still it’s not yet empty.”

I shook my head. “It’s magical,” I said, and thought of the dressing on my thigh, and the idea of these wondrous things possessed by the blackened beings made me, for some reason, very sad.

The following day we came across a tall green plant growing in the sand, which I was sure had not been there on our outward journey. From its thin branches hung small blue berries. I tried one, and found it succulent and sweet. We gathered more, filling our packs; we would dry the seeds and plant them when we returned home.

On the day before we reached our valley, we encountered crabs again — but these were no more than half my size, not the giants we had fought earlier, and they kept a respectful distance as we passed.

That twilight, as we set out on the last leg of our journey, I became aware of increased motion on the periphery of my vision. Nohma noticed it too. “Par?” she said, looking around her with a frown.

We were passing down a narrow valley, with high banks to right and left. As we stared, a strange thing happened. The flickering motion to right and left ceased suddenly, and the midnight blurs of activity became corporate. Nohma gasped, and I laughed aloud. A hundred silent, blackened beings looked down at us, utterly motionless.

I lifted a hand in farewell.

And then suddenly they were gone in a swarm of motion, flowing like liquid midnight up the valley and away from us.

That day we slept, and as twilight descended that evening we set off again, eager to reach home now and tell the tale of our Initiation.

Hours later we passed through the high plain, and came to the cutting and stopped on the crest, staring down. Tears came to my eyes as we beheld our home valley, with its stepped terraces rising on either side, and the orderly rows of app and pearly trees. Our people toiled on the terraces, and as we made our way down into the valley they looked up, and then stopped work and called to others in the caverns, and then hurried up the valley to meet us with embraces and a thousand questions.

That dawn, as we sat in the cavern around the glow-coals, I told my people of our exploits, of the giant crabs and the great dwellings made by our giant ancestors, of the blackened beings and their miraculous possessions. Fifty pairs of eyes stared in wonder as I described the vast V-shaped dwelling, and the domes on the escarpment. I told them of Kenda’s treachery, and how Nohma had saved my life as he attacked me, and how later she had saved me again when I had been at the mercy of a crab.

Later, I sat with Nohma at the entrance of the caverns, and stared out as the line of the sun edged across our valley. After a period of silence Nohma asked, “What are you thinking about, Par?”

And I replied, “The future.”

A short while later, Old Kahl and Old Tan approached and sat beside us. “Par,” Old Kahl said, “the time has come to appoint a new storyteller.”

Old Tan went on, “I am old now, and my memory is failing, and it is time I gave way to someone new. You have heard all my stories, and now you have brave tales of your own, and a way with words that I could never match.”

“Will you accept the honour?” Old Kahl asked.

I thought of all the storytellers over the years who had kept our history alive, who had recounted the exploits of previous generations, who told of the time when we did not live like insects in the caverns below ground.

“I accept,” I said, “but not immediately.”

Old Kahl frowned.

I said, “First, with your permission, I wish to mount an expedition. I want to take a dozen of our youngest, fittest men and women and journey back to the escarpment. I want to make contact again with the blackened beings, for they have much to teach us, and we have much to learn, and our people will benefit from the encounter.”

Old Kahl and Old Tan listened with bowed heads, and when I had had my say Old Kahl said, “We must take your proposal to the Elders, and discuss it with wiser heads than ours. But, in principle, I cannot see an objection to the idea of an expedition.”

And then they left us and we sat in the entrance and stared out across the valley.

I looked at Nohma. “And you will come too?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “Because if I do not, then who will be on hand to save your life?”

I smiled and fell silent, gazing out across the moon-silvered terraces.

Nohma asked, “What are you thinking about, Par?”

“The big skeletons we saw in the dome,” I said, “and the blackened beings.”

“What about them?”

“Nohma, what if many, many thousands of winters ago, the tall beings were the only race that lived on the Earth, and the sun swelled and burned up all the water, and humankind divided into two tribes. One tribe went underground, to the caverns, and the other… the other remained above ground, and became the blackened people.”