Zach Hughes: Killbird

«Permission,» Strabo granted. «First,» I said, pulling out the lionskin, «a special gift for Yuree, to warm her, to pleasure her, to give her honor.» There was a collective gasp, and the women crowded forward to finger the lionskin. I made no haste, willing to savor the moment, thinking of even greater triumph to come. I had planned it so carefully. I didn't know, then, that I was simply stupid to think that I could buy their love and respect. Oh, they accepted my gifts. They accepted them. «And now,» I said, «for the hunters, for the men of my family…» I reached into my pile of treasures and brought out the prearranged veins of the dragon and, with gasping and speculation, distributed one length to each man of the family. «A dragon?» Strabo asked, his eyes wide. «I have not forgotten the family head,» I said. «My father presented your father with the tribe's greatest treasure. I can do no less than match his generosity.» So saying, I pulled out a necklace of dragon's gut, a match for the one my father had given the elder Strabo. I hung it around Strabo's neck. He beamed and fingered it. The family was hooting in rhythm with Seer's beats. The sounds hung in the still summer air. I glowed with pride. «Is there nothing, then, for me?» Yuree asked, pouting. «Be patient,» I begged. «For the mothers of the family, each one, and for my friend, Seer of Unseen Things…» I brought them out one by one. One gaudy dragon's gut for each woman, three for Seer, who was the oldest. «You buy your death,» she whispered. I grinned confidently at her. The three dragon's guts looked good on her stringy neck. «And now,» I said, facing Yuree. «My greatest pleasure is to present the beautiful and desirable Yuree, and I pray that she will accept and honor me by choosing me, with… this.» Women cried out, began to scream and yodel in rhythm, for I held out and then put around Yuree's neck the greatest and most beautiful necklace ever seen. It was three strands thick and hung to her waist, and she went red with pleasure and smiled at me. «And as a further gift,» I shouted, over the din of the women's singing, «I have the carcass of the dragon well hidden, waiting for all the men in the family to gather treasure, to make the family of Strabo the Strongarm the richest in the mountains.» «Honor to Eban the Hunter,» Seer said. «Honor, honor,» the women chanted. «Honor to Eban the Hunter, slayer of dragons.» «It is honor to me,» Strabo said, kneeling in front of me. A family head had not kneeled to a man since Strabo's father knelt to pay honor to my father. I put my battered hardax on Strabo's shoulder. «The honor, honorable father, is shared,» I said. «And I renew my pledge to serve you and the family. I do this with great joy.» He rose. There were tears in his eyes. «Had I a son like you…» he said. «If it be God's will, I will be your son,» I said. «Yes,» he said. «It is time.» He turned. The chanting died. «My daughter,» he said. «You have seen. You have heard. Will you now choose?» Yuree opened her mouth. I saw it form that beautiful word, yes. But it was not to be. «We have not as yet been assured that the gods of man approve,» Strabas said, stepping between me and Yuree. «Woman,» Strabo said, «the choice is Yuree's.» «No,» Strabas said, «it is the custom. The mother has the right of last appeal to the gods.» There was a muttering. I'd never heard that one. Neither, apparently, had Strabo. He turned to Seer of Things Unseen. «It is true,» Seer said, shaking her head. «The right was last exercised in the time of your father's father, but it is the custom.» «So be it,» Strabo said. Did Yuree have a look of regret on her face? «With the dawn, then,» Strabo said. «If none of you needs more time for preparation.» Now, sometimes customs can be silly. I felt a great pity for the others, for the likes of Young Pallas and Teetom and Yorerie. They were out of it. Everyone knew it. Everyone knew that if Strabas hadn't spoken up, claimed her last appeal, Yuree would have chosen me and the gods could have gone on sleeping in their high places. Now, because an old woman did not want a haired one for a son, we all faced them, those sleek and fatal gods. Yet, because of custom and honor we went to our hidehouses and began to take out the birds, stored so carefully, the thin membranes of scraped hide, the tiny but strong lengths of hollowed wood. Because no preman could refuse, having gone so far, six of us would dare the displeasure of the gods of man in the light of a summer dawn. It is said that God gave man wings in a moment of weakness and, realizing it, then placed limitations upon man. And, the limitations being not enough, He then placed the gods of man in the heights to limit man's forbidden pleasure, his escape from the surface of the earth to be limited by his fear of retribution, by his weight, by the vagaries of wind and air. And yet the right to wings was man's from the time he could scrape skins. Only fools, however, abused that right. Wings were reserved for splendid and ceremonial occasions, and the flights were a hymn of praise to the God who loves chaos. I had flown last during the festival of the new growth, when the crops were peeking out of the ground, and we flew, the young ones, to praise God and to beg for the rains and the gentle sun. And now I would fly for another reason, the best reason I'd ever had. And, moreover, instead of the brief and swiftly finished hop from a small hilltop in a hidden valley, secluded from the eyes of the gods of man, I would fly from the dome upon which I had built my fire, created my chaos, prayed to God before I went to slay the dragon. And beside me would be five others, risking all, some of them, all of them save myself and Logan, for nothing. For from that dome, high above the surrounding hills, there was no protection from the eyes of the gods of man. The gods of man would look down, see, select, and choose to speak or remain silent. What was it in me which prevented me from scraping my shame on that night of all nights? Pride? Was I so sure of my manhood, having slain a dragon, that I no longer feared the disapproval which comes to a haired one? I have learned, since, that pride is a sin against the God of chaos. I spread my wings and oiled them carefully, making the very thin membrane soft and pliant. I reinforced the riggings with the veins of the dragon, making mine the strongest wings of all. I spread them and rigged them, and they arched up. I tried the saddle, and it was soft and comfortable, and, with the wings ready, I prayed, rubbing my godsticks, until the village was quiet. Then I slept to waken to the happy and excited cries of the young ones as they anticipated the glorious day when six sets of wings would adorn the sky at once and fly high, not in a sneaking hop from a low hill. God made man smaller than the deer, so that his body weight could be lifted by the wings. With so much pre-planning, then, how was his gift of wings so frivolous? If he had not meant man to fly he would not have given him wings, and that was a puzzle, for the gods of man, the killbirds, always waited. Man never knew, even on a short and secretive flight, when God would be angered and send His messenger flashing down from the skies. Never before had I felt His presence so vividly as I carried my wings to the dome, Young Pallas trudging along behind me, Logan in front of me. The men were working atop the dome, clearing a path for takeoff. There was feasting and singing. I passed nearby Seer, and she touched my arm. «Oh, Eban, it is not too late,» she said. «She is the daughter of a family head,» I said. Pride. My pairmate-to-be deserved the test. The last time a mating had been put into the hands of the gods of man was during the lifetime of Strabo's father, when Strabo's younger sister had come of age and was sought not only by men of the family, but by men of an adjoining family from whom our family had since been separated by distance, thanks to the inspired move by Strabo of the Strongarm. Yuree deserved the best, and without the ultimate test of courage, without the approval of the gods of man, she would not be getting it. I regretted, momentarily, that Yuree was not on the dome to see the takeoff. But it made sense. She was far away, down the long slope, in the valley, at a distance of the walk of a four fingers' movement of the sun. There she could greet the victor, the final choice. I could almost feel her arms around me. «May the killbirds be sleeping,» Seer said, as I left her. «Are there any who would withdraw, without malice?» Strabo asked. As he expected, as demanded, no one spoke. Teetom was white of face as he fussed with his wings. «You know the custom,» Strabo said. «He who flies longest, who tempts the gods longest without destruction, is the victor.» «We know,» Yorerie said, in his thick-tongued way. We all knew. We knew that once we had cleared the ground there was no dishonor in ending the flight as quickly as we chose. In fact, honor came to the man who landed first, for he did not continue to risk a precious life. But I was not after honor. I had honor, more than any man in our family. I was after Yuree, and to win her I would fly to the low clouds, to the dim blue of the high places, into the lair of the gods of man, the killbirds, themselves. But there was a look of determination on the face of Logan, too. «May the killbirds be sleeping,» Strabo said, making a gesture with his hardax. There was a low, mourning chant as we poised there in a line, standing in the cleared runway with our hearts pounding, looking forward to that glorious freedom of flight and fearing it at the same time, none of us knowing who would be chosen by a streaking killbird. Above us there were soft little white clouds and vast areas of blue sky. Clouds would not have helped, for killbirds see through them. «God have sympathy,» Strabo said, as we began running. Then the ground fell away under my feet and I leaned and felt the wings bite into the air and experienced the giddy happiness of leaving the ground with the trees brushing my feet before my wings caught hold and lifted me. Below I could see Teetom's wings tumbling as his feet dragged a treetop and he was out of it. The first. Five of us left. Logan above me and Yorerie, yelling a crazy song of happiness, by my side. «Ha, Yorerie,» I called, trilling the words. «Ha, Eban,» he trilled back. And then he was off on a wind, lifting, and I felt the same uplift and soared, the green trees growing smaller below me, the valley coming into my view. I soared to within a few wing lengths of Yorerie. Below I could see Cree the Kite landing in a hillside clearing. Two down with honor. I looked up. The sky was clean. No telltell track of whiteness to speak of the thunder of a killbird. «Ha, Yorerie,» I called. «Go down, for even should you win she will exercise her last appeal and reject you.» «Ha, Eban,» he called, laughing, speaking more clearly than I'd ever heard him speak. «I care not. I have known I would be rejected, but I fly.» Oh, the fool. He had been in it all along merely for the chance to risk a long and soaring flight. Young Pallas wisely went in at the grassy side of the stream, three arrow flights from the dome. Three down. Logan high above me, soaring, circling. The fool. He was going to make a real contest of it, and with Strabas in his favor would Yuree have the strength to reject him should he win? I found a rising wind and rode it, circling. We were being foolish. We should have gone in a straight line for the finish point, a meadow in the center of the valley. Instead we circled and soared, riding the hot breath of the valley, warmed by the sun, and above us the trackless sky posed a deadly threat. Fobs, later known as the Fool, defied the gods. Defied tradition. Defied the advice of his elders, flying his wings without occasion, for his own pleasure, defying God one time too many, as we all watched, we young ones. The killbird appeared, high, first as a streak of white and then as a gleaming dot which sped downward with the speed of lightning, and the great blast left nothing but a rain of debris and tatters of scraped skin from Fobs' wings. «Yorerie, for God's sake, go down,» I yelled, as I circled close. My eyes were searching the sky. We had been aloft forever, it seemed, much too long, long enough for a killbird to see, to come, to blast. «Yah, yah, yah,» Yorerie yelled, banking, sweeping away so gracefully that it caused a knot in my throat. I dared not leave the rising current of heated air, for Logan was still above me. Yorerie was skillful. He soared back to within a wingspan of me. «Let us both go down,» he said. «For she will reject your hair.» «No,» I said. «She will not.» «I go,» he said, dropping away, arrowing away toward the meadow. I saw him make his landing, standing, keeping his precious wings from damage. And then it was just the two of us, Logan above me. I began to try to soar to his level, seeking the turn of air which would lift me. When I was near, he laughed. «Go down, Haired One,» he said. «You seek death or rejection.» «Would it please you, living with the knowledge that it was her mother who chose you?» I asked. «I don't care who makes the choice,» he yelled, «so long as I am chosen.» «Let the gods of man decide, then,» I said grimly, sweeping away from him so that when the killbird came we would be far apart, leaving the gods of man a choice. «So be it,» he yelled after me. They were sleeping, I felt, for we had been in the air so long, so long. Fobs the Fool had not flown so long on his fatal flight. Surely the killbirds were sleeping, or God was sympathetic. Surely Logan would know fear. Surely he would go down so that I could go, after him, to claim my prize. From far below I could hear yelling. «Come down, come down.» We were drifting slowly back toward the dome, circling, gaining height on the column of warm air, and I dreamed that there were no killbirds and man could fly at his pleasure and seek new height and extend the delicious feeling of being free forever. I did not see the telltale streak of white. I heard the screaming from the ground and then looked up, around, and there, high, near the sun, I saw it, the streak. We were high above the dome. It would be close, for the killbird traveled swiftly, if we tried, now, to reach the safety of the ground, to hide beneath the trees. «There,» I yelled, pointing with my head. He saw it. «Oh, God,» he cried. «Will you go down?» I yelled. «Let the gods of man choose,» he said. «Fool, fool,» I cried. He seemed to be frozen with terror, but he was determined. He was set in a circle, riding the column of air. I yelled, «Break out of the circle. Take action.» He seemed not to hear me, and, above, the white streak grew and grew behind the killbird as he thundered down. Then I could hear the low rumble of his growl, and I, death not being my object, took action, swooping away from the circling Logan. I aimed for the dome with the intent of going into the depression behind it, putting the bulk of the hill between me and the streaking, roaring killbird while Logan was still circling. I tried to extend the line of the killbird to estimate if he had chosen one of us as a target. It was too far up to tell. I could see the family, at least half of them, Strabo, Seer, all the others, on the dome below me, their faces uplifted, fingers pointing to the death which streaked out of the sky. I had put considerable distance between me and Logan. He still circled. And then it became apparent as the line behind the killbird jogged and the roaring sounded ever louder, the killbird coming so fast that he left his growl behind him, that he had selected and, instead of the relatively stationary target offered by the circling Logan, he had chosen me. So be it, I said. But I was not ready to give up. I dived with the roar in my ears, the killbird a distinct thing now, sleek, deadly, shiny, the sun reflected off his skin, his deadly nose pointed directly toward me. I dived toward the dome. Wind sang in my ears, put fierce strain on my frail wings. They would break and I would tumble into the trees. But they held, and I flashed over the dome so low that I could see the teeth in Strabo's mouth as he yelled at me and the roar was in my ears and the killbird was so near I could make out the marking of his skin. Then I was over the dome and diving, and below me was a valley. To put the hill between us, that was my intent. Then the killbird would soar past and be unable to change directions so swiftly to pursue me into the valley, where I would land, in the trees, and lose, for Logan was still high, circling. And then I was past and diving fast while my wings protested and behind me there was a great blast which seized me and lifted me, stopping my dive, throwing me forward. I fought for control. I was alive and the killbird had done his worst and I would climb again and outlast Logan and all would be right with the world. Then I felt something splat against my legs and looked down to see a piece of human flesh, navel clearly visible, slide off my legs, leaving very red blood, and I screamed, looked back, having gained control, to see the top of the dome leveled. All dead. Strabo. The Seer of Things Unseen, half of the family. I had led the killbird directly to them. I turned, hot tears in my eyes. The top of the dome had become the chaos pleasing to God. Trees blasted, stumps burning, a glint of killbird skin, a huge hole. No sign of people, except a severed leg in a damaged treetop. Oh, God. Oh, God. So many lives. So many precious and irreplaceable lives. Half the family. The family head. My old friend, my only friend, Seer. Logan was streaking for the meadow. I watched him go. Finding the column of air, I soared. I looked up. «Come,» I cried. «Come, killbird. Take me. For I do not want to live.» The killbird's white trail was wisping out, becoming indistinct. The blue sky was empty. I considered diving down, straight down, to smash into the rocks, but that was a sin which I did not need. Having been responsible for so many deaths, I did not need to extend my time in the burning place by taking my own. I dared not tempt God further. For to seek death would be to rob Him of His right to judge, to punish. I knew the first taste of that punishment already. I had lost. I was the last one in the air, but I had lost everything. For I had killed the father of the one I loved, and she was now so far beyond my reach that there was no hope. For our customs are the things of survival, and to condone what I had done would unravel the very threads of our means of survival in a world of chaos. I could not even go back. As a bringer of death I was the most abhorred thing in man's world. Yuree. Yuree. How I loved you. «Come, killbird,» I begged. «Please, God, take me. Punish me. Free me from my sadness.» The cold blue sky was empty. I strained my eyes, climbing higher and higher, riding the updrafts. I was drifting away from the valley of my people. The Lake of Clean Water far below was beginning to disappear as hills intervened. Looking back, it was a glorious flight, but I was in no condition to enjoy. I merely flew there, higher and higher, begging God to send a killbird that never came. I was moving toward the far hills to the east, to the place where I, in my youthful arrogance, thought that I had gained the world merely by slaying a dragon. And in the end I had to come down, for the updrafts deserted me, and I considered crashing into rocks or trees, but again that was taking God's prerogative. I landed in a little clearing, far from the valley of my people. I respected my wings, folding them. I lay in the grass and willed myself to die. The mind might wish death, but the body never does. It rebelled, after God only knows how long, and I found myself seeking food from the fruit trees, drink from the clear stream. I had nothing, only my wings. It was chill. I covered myself with grasses for warmth, and by morning I had decided that God wanted me to live. What I would do with my life was now in God's hands. I packed my wings. If a man is to live he must have tools. I carried the wings to the place of the dragon and took what I could with my bare hands. I found a very unsatisfactory piece of dragon skin which I honed for days until it was ready to mount, using dragon veins, to a crude handle. I made a longbow and strung it with dragon veins, fashioned arrows from wood, tipped them with crude pieces of dragon skin. Then I could hunt for meat, and life became an endless series of days, meaningless days. I used the dragon for my house, sleeping in the cavity which I had cleared out. Many times I wondered about Yuree. The summer days began to grow short, and I set about making myself warm skins for winter. I was alone. I built a hide lean-to to cover the cavity in the dragon and gradually began to build up a winter's supply of sun-dried meat and nuts from the trees. And then, with the first chill of the coming winter putting a coating of frost on the bleeding skin of the slain dragon, I contemplated spending the long winter nights alone in a dead dragon, and there was something akin to panic in me. I still wished only to die. I could not die. God apparently wanted me to live and to suffer. To seek death was a sin. But perhaps there was a way. I stood one day with the chill of the winter kissing my back and gazed out toward the flats. It was taboo to go there, but it was a sort of… well, I guess you could say common-sense taboo, with no punishment other than danger and death involved. I mean, it was not a sin for me to go there but it was foolish. No man ever went into the flats and came back alive. But wasn't that what I wanted? And to find death there would not be a sin, merely foolishness. Moreover, if God wanted me to live and suffer he could keep me alive in the flats to suffer there, couldn't he? I could not face winter alone in that dragon's hide. I sought out the highest ridge overlooking the distant undulation of rolling hills which led to the lows and assembled my wings. I took only my hardax and my longbow. Their additional weight would slow my flight, but would not make it impossible. I waited for a warm day with a wind from the hills behind me. The distant valley shimmered with heat. I ran, leaped, and flew. I used the updrafts. I used all my skill. I was tempting the gods of man, and I didn't care. And they didn't care about me, for no killbird came to blast me into forgetfulness. At the center of the valley I felt, on my exposed belly, the warning, the tingling. And down there were the piles of stone and other things which, legend says, were the homes of the giants. Shivering, I almost wished there were giants, giants who could squash me with a fist and put an end to it. I flew away from the source of the warning tingle, however, and cleared a ridge, found an updraft on the other side, rode it to clear another ridge. I suppose it was an epic flight, the longest man has ever made. It extended for half a day, over ridge after ridge as the land dropped away under me until, in the late afternoon, the winds and the updrafts failed me and I sank slowly downward, into a flatness which, after living my life among the mountains, seemed sinister and eerie. I took a good look as I went down. The land was mostly barren, with rocks exposed, the dirt a dirty red. Far away there was a line of trees which seemed to mark a stream, but they were stunted and unhealthy, unlike the trees of my mountains. I landed running, stumbled over a rock, went tail over wings and smashed the delicate bracings. It didn't matter. I would have no use for wings in this flat desert. I was not hurt. God was looking out for me, keeping me alive to suffer. I salvaged some dragon's veins from the wings and set off toward the distant trees. There was a little rabbity type of animal there in the flats, existing on God knows what, and I killed one with an arrow, skinned him, smelled him, found him to be unsavory but edible. I carried the carcass to the tree line and found a stream of reddish water which tasted tepid. I used my hardax and a piece of flint for a fire and settled in. I awoke with a feeling of eyes upon me. I leaped to my feet, clutching my hardax. I saw them then. There were three of them. Two men and a woman, the woman lank of body, thinner than I, and with a filthy mane of hair on her skull. The men were equally sorry, with hair on face and head. They were dressed in tattered and filthy skins, and their eyes were sunken into their faces. «Who are you?» I asked. «Who are you?» one of the men asked. His words were distorted but understandable. «I am Eban the Hunter,» I said. «What do you hunt?» the woman asked, licking her lips. «I have hunted bears and lions,» I said, with a swift pride which soon faded as I remembered. «This is no bear,» one of the men said, pointing to the remains of the rabbity animal which had been my meal. «If you are hungry, eat,» I said. The man leaped toward the carcass and began to tear it with his hands, the other two pushing and yelling, trying to grab a bit for themselves. It sickened me. I stepped forward and pushed one of the men. He was frail, and he fell to his back. The other scrambled away on his hands and knees. Only the woman remained, the food clutched in her hands. «There is enough for all,» I said. I took the animal and cut it into pieces with my hardax, handing each a share. «Eat,» I said. «You are great and mighty,» the woman said. «I will be your ———» She said a word which is sometimes used, with shame, by young boys trying to shock. I turned red. «You like I be your———?» she asked. «No,» I said harshly, «nor do I want to hear such language.» «I will cook for you and tend your fire, then,» she said. «As you will,» I said. «I will sleep.» «Yes,» she said. «Sleep. I will stay awake and keep the fire for you.» The two men huddled together and seemed to go to sleep. I curled up and closed my eyes, opening them now and then to look at the woman. Her clothing was mere tatters, showing her long flanks and the curve of her breasts. I slept. Later in my life I saw men, if the inbreeders deserve the name, seek death by their own hands. But a real man, however sure he is that life is not worth living, clings to life with all his strength, even as his mind wishes ease in eternal sleep. I had a feeling, perhaps not fully realized, that if death was all I sought it would come to me as a pleasant surprise in my sleep that night. So that urge, that sacred will to live, kept my hand on the handle of my crude hardax. A good hunter, it is said, sleeps with one eye open. I'm sure that both my eyes were closed, but there was something in me which was vigilant, for I woke and rolled with one movement and the dragonskin head of my own arrow plunked into the ground where I had lain. It was, on my part, instinctive, I suppose, for if I had been fully aware I would not have done as I did, leaping with one fluid movement to vault the dying fire and shed the blood of the man who had seized my longbow and used it to try to kill me. His skull split with an ease which made it difficult for me, as he fell, to remove my hardax from it. And then I was whirling to meet a new threat as the dead man's companion screamed in rage and, using both hands, tried to break my skull with a huge rock. As it was the rock struck me a glancing blow on the shoulder, numbing it, but it was my eating hand, not my hunting hand, and I swung the hardax, driven by anger at the betrayal—I had, after all, shared my food with them—and by the instinct of survival. The ax flashed in the dying light of the fire and took the second inbreeder on the side of the throat, sliding across bone to sever the large artery there. His life pumped away as he dug futilely in the barren red dirt with his broken and dirty nails. I turned to the woman, who was crouching on the ground, my ax held high. «Please, please,» she cried. «I wanted to warn you, but they would have killed me.» «Is this the way your people reward hospitality?» I asked. «We have eaten nothing for three suns,» she whimpered. «Do not kill me. I will be your———» That word caused me to curl my lips in disgust. And then I was struck by the sure knowledge that I had taken life. To be sure, I examined the men. The first, his skull cracked, was surely dead, and the second was gasping out his last breath. I saw the gleaming bone of the skull and was struck by its fragility. The skulls of my people are thick and strong and protect the mind. The inbreeder's skull was thin, so thin. No wonder my ax buried itself in it. Dead. Men dead at my hand. I fell to my knees and thrust my face into the dry red dirt. I wailed. I prayed the prayers of the dead. The woman sat, chewing on one dirty fingernail, watching me. «Are you driven mad, then?» she asked, as I raised my face, now streaked with my tears and the red earth. «Will you kill me?» «I have had enough of killing,» I said. «Do you not mourn your dead?» «I do not mourn them.» she said. I found grass and dead sticks for the fire, no longer interested in sleep. I dug holes with my ax and buried the two men. The earth was hard and the work long, and when it was finished the sun was a redness to the east. «They took me away from my village,» the woman said. «Come there with me and I will cook for you.» I wanted no part of them. But she looked weak and helpless in the morning light. I told her to remain. I walked about and shot a rabbity animal and cooked it over the open fire. She devoured half of it greedily and carried the remainder in the folds of her filthy skirt. I had made my decision. «I will take you to your family,» I said. She led the way downstream, and there was a little pitiful growth of woodlands into which she ran, leaving me behind. I followed, and soon I could hear the sounds of young voices, and around a bend in the trail I saw a collection of sorry structures built of grasses, mud, sticks and odd-looking things which I did not recognize. The woman was standing in a clearing on the edge of this collection of shacks, waving to me to hurry. But as I neared I felt the voice of the spirits on my belly. I paused, turned, finding that the warning came from the village. I shook my head and called out to her. She came. «Do you not feel it?» I asked. «I always feel hunger,» she said. She held out the greasy remains of her breakfast. «Come to my home and I will cook for you and be your———» «Fool,» I said. «There is warning here.» «Warning?» «Death.» «Some die,» she said, shrugging. «All die,» I said. «I go.» She burst into tears. «Please, please,» she begged. «There is warning, and to ignore it is slow death by the sores and fever.» «No. There is no sickness. Not since the cold of winter.» «I go.» «Take me with you.» «I travel fast and alone.» «You are strong. I am weak. I have no one since the death of my mate.» «You will find another of your kind.» She looked at me in puzzlement. «Of my kind? Are you not of my kind?» I shuddered. «No.» I turned. She stood there, weeping. She was slim, as I was, and in spite of her personal filth and the dirty, tattered skins she wore, she was woman, a pretty picture when I was not close enough to see the dirt under her fingernails and the scaling of unwashed skin. For a moment I considered taking her. I would not be alone. But my path led eastward. I had no right to add another's life to my foolish risk. To put distance between myself and temptation, I broke into a ground-eating trot, aiming for a distant line of low hills where there were trees. Twice I had to detour, once around an immense area of God's chaos where the warning was strong and again past a smaller area. By nightfall I was climbing the long slope to the hills and found there a stream. I had eaten nothing all day. I tested the water, and it was silty but clean. I drank deeply, removed my skins, washed them, spread them on a bush to dry, sank myself into the water, snorting, washing my hair and my skin, rubbing it until it glowed with the sand from the stream's bottom. Refreshed I built a fire and listened to the night noises. Hunger came to me. I heard rustlings in the undergrowth and, with little effort, captured an ugly small furred animal with a long tail. Skinned, he was fat. I cut away most of the fat and cooked a haunch over the fire and was settling down to a not very satisfactory meal when I heard noises. First the unskilled walking sounds of a man unused to being in the forest at night, then the unmistakable sound of a woman weeping. I knew immediately who it was, but I sat quietly. The sounds approached. She saw the fire and came running. «I have no one,» she said, sobbing. I handed her meat. She ate, heedless of the dripping onto her already filthy skin skirt. She saw the fat which I had put aside to oil my hardax and, finished with the cooked meat, speared fat with a stick and held it over the fire. It sizzled and dripped, the droppings making splashes of fire on the coals, and then she ate it. «I am Mar,» she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. «I will be your———» «I forbid you ever to use that word,» I said sternly. «It's a love word.» «It's a filth word.» «I obey,» she said. «I will warm your back as you sleep.» «No,» I said. She stank. Not since skinning the dead lion had I smelled such rot. «I will sleep now and tomorrow you will return to your village,» I said. Not giving her a chance to answer, I rolled into my bed of leaves and grass. She sat for a long time and then curled up on the ground near the fire. During the night she came and slept by my feet, her hand touching my tough and blackened sole. Several times I pulled my foot away, but each time she returned, the touch light and, somehow, comforting. At dawn there was a chill in the air, and I left her there sleeping while I hunted and shot a climber. He was tough and stringy, but the meat, unlike the fatty repast of the evening, was good. She ate more than her share. I set out at a fast pace. She kept stride with me, which was more than any of my people could do. Her legs were long and supple, like mine. Seeing that I did not want to talk, she was silent. Beyond the low hill there was a valley which stretched onward, with areas of God's chaos strewn everywhere. I picked a likely route. It was not, by any means, a straight line, since I felt the warnings each time I neared an area of God's chaos, and she questioned my wandering. «You do not feel the warning?» «What warning?» «There,» I said, pointing toward a rubbled area, stark and forbidding. «There we find things,» she said. «Building materials for our houses. Pretty things.» «There is death,» I repeated. She looked at me strangely. At midday we saw, coming to meet us, a small group. I considered moving to one side, but remembering the ease with which I'd handled two of the inbreeders, and knowing more curiosity than fear, I waited. The group consisted of a haired man, three small children and a woman far along toward giving life. «Thank the gods,» the man said, hurrying the last small distance to meet us. «A woman. My mate—» «Is it time?» Mar asked. «She has been feeling the pains since morning,» he said. Mar arranged the family's sleepskins in the meager shade of a runted tree, and the woman lay moaning as the convulsions came. I sat and watched. The man squatted on his heels. The children went off to explore the nearby countryside. «There,» I said, «to the east. Can you tell me of the country?» The man shrugged. «What's to tell? The same.» «Have you been far?» «Five days,» he said. «We go to the coolness of the low hills.» «Are there dragons?» «The dragon of the grass plain,» he said. «Two days march, then go north past a range of wooded slopes to avoid his path.» «Tell me of him.» «A dragon is a dragon,» he said. «He is old and has no teeth, but his eyes live, as he does.» Our talk was halted by a scream from the woman in labor, and I looked to see Mar lift a wet and repulsive bundle which, as she wiped it with grass, was a kicking and bawling baby, and then there was another. Eagerly, when Mar gave the signal that it was over, the man ran to the shade of the tree. I saw him halt in midstride. His wail was hoarse and painful. Curious, I went to look past him. One of the newly born was unlike anything human I'd ever seen. The skull had flowed down into what should have been the face, displacing one eye completely and moving the other low, where it glared out from beside a maw which replaced the nose, leaving only a gaping, raw, red hole. The mouth was small and lipless, and inside I could see tiny pointed teeth. The arms were flippers, as of a hardshell of the lakes, and the legs were shortened, with no feet at the end of rounded stubs. With a hoarse cry, the father seized the thing and, holding it by its footless legs, dashed its horrible head against the tree. He tossed it aside and then raised the other baby to examine it. It was female, and it was active and well shaped. «One out of one,» the man said. «The gods are kind.» He turned to me proudly. I was still sickened and shocked by his cruelty to the malformed young one. «She will be called after your mate, who delivered her,» he said. «And should it be your desire, she is yours as a gift, for, as you see, we have three already.» «Thank you,» I said. «I have no time for a child.» «So be it,» he said. «Perhaps you would like the oldest girl, there.» He pointed. His oldest daughter was, perhaps, six summers. She was naked, save for a loincloth. «Of course,» he said, «since she has survived the dangerous years, and is already good———» he used the word which seemed to come to these people so easily—"I would have to have something. Say, that hardax you carry.» «Have you people no shame?» I exploded. I could stand the sight of him no longer. I turned and ran from the scene, heading east. I heard Mar running behind me. After a while I walked and she came to my side. «You are different,» she said. «Are you a holy man from the distant mountains?» «I am of the mountains,» I said. «I should have known. God forgive me,» she said. «Don't strike me dead because I tried to tempt you with my unworthy body, holy man.» I marched long and fast, and she stayed beside me uncomplainingly. When I found a suitable campsite I quickly built a couch of leaves and grass and, feeling sorry for her in her seeming helplessness, built one for her. Then, with a fire going, I found large fish in the stream, which were easily speared with my arrows. Mar watched with fascination. «You are so wise.» «Children take fish in this fashion,» I said. «Let me try,» she begged. I handed her the longbow. She fumbled with it. I put my arms around her to show her how to hold it, and the stench of her assaulted my nostrils. «Gah,» I said. «You smell long dead.» «If I were rich,» she said, «I would have scents to make me smell sweet.» «There is a better and simpler way,» I said. «There is the stream. It is bottomed with clean, white sand. Wash yourself.» «I obey,» she said. She walked to the stream, cupped her hands, splashed water into her face and came, her face dripping, to smile at me. «Is that better?» I could not believe that the inbreeders did not know the clean joy of a bath. «It would be better,» I said, «if you removed your clothing, pounded it and rubbed it with stones to remove the stench and the biting insects, and rubbed yourself all over with sand.» She recoiled, shocked. «Holy father,» she said, «are you mad?» Well, it was her body, and as long as I didn't have to smell it, so be it. I fed the two of us with roasted fish, which made a pleasant change of diet, and slept. I awoke with the stench of the dead lion in my nostrils and felt warmth at my back. She was cupped around me, making a pleasant little buzzing sound as she breathed. I pushed her away, and she groaned and came back to put one arm over me. It was overwhelming, the stench. I shook her awake. «Get on the other side of the fire,» I said, «in your own bed.» She went, weeping. «What kind of man are you to deny a woman the pleasure of the warmth of your body on a chill night?» she protested. «When you cease to smell like a dead lion I will warm you,» I said. «You are cruel and horrible and totally uncivilized,» she said, turning her back and burrowing down into her couch. I? Uncivilized? I leaped to my feet. I dragged her by the arm from her couch. «I will show you civilization,» I said, pulling her toward the stream. She seemed to realize my intentions and began to scream and fight. I found myself with an armful of woman and had to use all my strength to subdue her without hurting her. When I had her bundled into my arms she was still kicking and wailing, and then I was at the stream. I threw her bodily into it. She landed with a great splash and came to the surface, spitting water. There was a full moon, and I could see the beams of it reflecting, shattered by her splash. She screamed and started flailing the water and went under. The fool was going to drown in water which came only to her waist. I waded in, pulled her by the hair to her feet and got a few scratches as she tried to climb my body as if I were a tree. When at last I had her calmed, she stood there, my arms around her, shivering and weeping. «You will kill me,» she said. «I am only going to wash you,» I said. And, so saying, I began to take the clothing off her. She seemed resigned at first, letting me denude her. I had a shock when her breasts were bared, for, slim as she was, she had beautiful, large, full woman's breasts. «Now,» I said, «kneel, bring sand from the bottom, rub it over your skin. I will wash your clothing.» «You are going to kill me,» she said. «Oh, gods,» I said. I took handfuls of sand, and as she stood there, weeping, I scrubbed her, feeling a strangeness in my body as my hands covered the roundness of her body, the hips, the hard back and soft rump, the full legs. To do the job right I washed thoroughly between her legs, and when I was doing that she ceased her sobbing for a moment and, in the moonlight, looked at me with her eyes half closed. I scrubbed her until her skin was red and then washed her long hair repeatedly until, by sniffing her in various places, I detected only the fresh and natural scents of a clean body. I led her from the stream. «Go to the fire,» I said. «Warm yourself. I will wash your skins.» She went. I beat her clothing with stones and rubbed it with stones and rinsed it repeatedly, and finally, after a long time, it was reasonably clean, but with a faint lingering aroma. Then I went to the fire. She was in her own couch, curled into a ball. I put her clothing onto a bush to dry and removed my own wet hides. I rubbed the water from my skin, shivering with the chill. In my couch I pulled leaves to cover me. She had her back turned. If that was the way she wanted it, so be it. I slept. I awoke, feeling only a short passage of time, to feel her soft warmth at my back. It was pleasant, and there was only the fresh scent of cleanliness. I could tell by her breathing that she was not asleep. «Much better,» I said. «Now we can give each other warmth.» «I will die of the chill,» she said. She was shivering. Feeling slightly guilty, I turned and put my arms around her to give her my warmth. Her softness was disturbing. There was no sin in my actions. Nor was there sin when, with a sigh, she lifted her head and placed her lips on mine. All premen and prewomen may play so. And it was pleasant. Her lips full, soft. Her hands clasped my back and gave little spots of warmth. I let my hands know her back and her soft rump and, although she was not protected with a loincloth, carefully avoided the forbidden spot. I had done as much many times with Yuree, and the memory of it was white-hot pain. I ceased my activity. She did not. I lay as if made of stone, and her hands went to my manhood, and it grew, and then she was atop me, her weight sweet, and I was still thinking of Yuree when I felt myself touch the forbidden and her hand guiding me. «It is sin,» I gasped, trying to push her away. She clung and engulfed me, and I was weak, knowing feelings which I had never known. And what was one more sin on the head of a killer of his own people? We slept little as she taught me. «You are not—were not—prewoman,» I said, during a lull. «What?» «Oh, yes,» I said, «you said you had a mate, who died or was killed.» «Yes. But none like you,» she whispered. «Now you will be with child,» I said. «No. I am barren.» «That is sad,» I said. Barrenness was not unknown to my people. «I would have taken the little girl,» she said. «Perhaps you are not barren, after all.» She laughed. «I have tried many times with many mates.» I was shocked. I rolled away and gave her my back. «Did I say something wrong?» she asked. «Many mates?» I asked, feeling jealousy. «Oh, as many as my fingers, no more.» «Shame,» I said. «You speak of shame and you a holy man?» «I am not a holy man.» «Then you are mad.» «Perhaps,» I said. I was silent. At last, I went to sleep. When I awoke she was cooking the fish which I had suspended in a tree out of the reach of small animals. I ate. I resolved not to repeat my sin with her, but my resolution failed after we had eaten and she came to me. We spent half a moon there, near the stream, and in that time I taught her and she taught me. She learned, finally, that fatal chills do not come from wetting the body all over, and, indeed, before we left she had begun to swim in a frantic, flailing, half-sinking sort of way. I had utilized the time to kill climbers, tan their hides, and fashion her a garment, using the few strands of dragon's veins which I had to hold it together. She looked charming in her reddish skirt which rose to cover her breasts and hang by one strap across a tanned shoulder, and I found myself forgetting, for long periods at a time, that I was Eban the Killer of his People and that I had lost happiness when the killbird struck the father of my intended pairmate. I could even forget, for a while, when Mar was in my arms, that she had known other men, as many as her fingers. Mar was, as best she could account, the number of summers counted by the fingers of two hands and the toes of one foot. She had no numbers, as I did. I told her that was fifteen, and she said, «Yes, two hands and one foot.» It was a signal of coming winter which broke into my idleness, my happiness there in that grove of stunted trees beside the stream where big fish swam. «We must go,» I said. «We will go back to my village, there to spend the winter in my house,» she said. «We will not,» I said. «We will go to the south and the east.» «There be dragons,» she said fearfully. «It is you who followed me, knowing my intentions.» «I did not know you were mad and would go to the east forever.» «Perhaps not forever,» I said. Why was I driven? I had Mar. Although game was not as plentiful, and was small and stringy, there was game in those flatlands. I could have built a hut, a cave, something. But there were those moments when I remembered and knew that to the east was my salvation, the deliverance of Eban the Killer of His People. There was death, and an honorable death at God's will and not from my own hand. There was Mar, however. Had I the right to risk her life? «Mar,» I said, «there will be danger. When there is, I will warn you and you will retreat. If I am killed, you will go back to your people.» «It is far,» she said. «I would not be able to find them. I would starve.» «Follow the setting sun,» I said. «And I will prepare food for you, food which will last.» I dried meat in the sun, carrying it as we journeyed uneventfully toward the south and east, staying just ahead of winter. We encountered few of the inbreeders, avoiding them as I avoided the more and more numerous areas of God's chaos. At night the winter stars were the same as those of my mountains. And many times, as I lay awake, I saw God's messengers, stars larger than the rest, high, swiftly moving, traveling from flat horizon to flat horizon. I did not know what I sought. I had nothing for which to live, save Mar. And she would not mourn me, for she had known men, as many as the fingers of two hands. Chapter Four I fully expected to be dead. Now the time of long nights was nearing. From the notches I'd made on the handle of my hardax I knew that the new moon was the first moon of the winter and that in the mountains there would now be snow, the animals entering into the long harshness of shortage, the deer growing poorer as the days passed, the great bear sleeping, but in this strange land the winter's breath was merely a frost, a thin layer of white which melted and faded with the rise of the sun, and although the nights were cold, the days were warm. Once I tried to estimate, at the end of a purposeful but not strenuous day's walk, the distance we had covered in arrow flights. The numbers grew until they were beyond my comprehension, and the total distance between me and my home and my people was of such a vastness! And I was not dead. We heard talk of dragons, and we saw, in the few people we encountered—so far south and east were we now, at the start of winter, that we went a full moon without seeing a trace of man, and then only in the form of a corpse left lying beside a woodland—the signs of death. Few wandered so far. One day we saw a new kind of bird, white, flying low and crying out with a raucous screech. The air smelled different, damp, humid, even on the chill days of early winter. Mar could not understand, nor, in confidence, could I, the urge which kept me going. Past death now, I think, looking back, that it was pride, or perhaps curiosity. Could it all be such a sameness? The flat, slightly rolling ground, the stunted trees, the occasional streams, the vast and sprawling heaps of God's chaos? It was far more dangerous in the mountains, with lions, bears and dragons. Dragons in the east? Ha. We had heard of dragons, for example the dragon of the grassy plain, but we had seen none. I concluded that the only danger in the east was to people like Mar, who, I had concluded, did not have the gift of the warning, could not feel the spirits of the dead, perhaps the dead giants, calling out from the chaos of God to tell of death. Someday, I thought, I would return and tell the people of the mountains, the only true men, that there was no danger in the far hills nor beyond. They would not believe me, of course, for from childhood man was taught that death lay there, and had been taught so for so many generations that it was a part of our legacy. Perhaps I still sinned in my pride, thinking that someday I would return and tell strange tales and, perhaps, enrich the knowledge of my people. At any rate, I continued on more east now than south, and the countryside changed from rolling hills to a flat plain with only mild undulations, scanty vegetation, and even scantier game, consisting mostly of little rodents and hares. The soil was sandy and coarse and poor, and now and then, where there was chaos, the surface could be seen from a distance to have a sheen, as if made of sand-colored ice. But the areas of warning, the heaps of God's chaos, were more scattered. We encountered a large river and followed it. There were trees along the stream, and the water was drinkable, if muddy. I began to wonder if that river would lead to the fabled field of large waters, the unending lake, or if that was merely some myth out of our past. We encountered swamps along the river, sometimes pushing through them, sometimes skirting them. In the swamps were wondrous creatures, snakes which did not flee, as did the harmless snakes of the mountains, but stayed to fight and poison their prey with their fangs, larger reptiles with huge scales, turtles, and a delicious large variety of frog, the legs of which made feasts equaled only by the meat of the fanged serpents. To build up enough frog's legs for a meal, we entered one swamp, waded, found high ground, killed snakes and frogs until, seeing a rise ahead, we carried our booty out through thick woods to step without much forethought into an open field grown with a tall form of grass. I froze instantly and then went into action, thrusting Mar back into the trees. There, within arrow flight, was the old and bloody head of a dragon. Thank God he had been sleeping. We circled and came out of the swamp in another area, carefully this time, and, gods of man, there were dragons everywhere, ancient, their blood coloring their hides, their heads motionless but deadly. All the dragons of the world seemed to be congregated in that field. I could not help but stay to stare and think of all the riches inside those beasts, and for a long time I counted, reaching three hundred before I forgot which dragons I had counted. And all the time none of them moved. I began to notice things. The nearest dragon sagged on his feet, his belly on the rankly grown ground, a gaping hole in his side. He looked as dead as the dragon I'd killed. «Here, dragon,» I called, standing for a moment, exposed. I leaped back, but there was no hail of teeth, no flash of deadly eyes. While Mar cowered among the trees, I stepped out into the weed-grown field and dared them, all of the tens of dragons which I could see. None moved. All were holed, battered, dead on their feet. I danced and sang. I called out to them, always ready to leap for safety. Nothing. Leaving Mar in shelter, I crawled toward the nearest dragon. I gained the shelter of its tough-skinned hide, below the holes which spat teeth and the glaring eyes, most of which were shattered. He was dead. Very dead. I looked into the hole in his side, and there, exposed, were his guts. I made use of them, jerking them out one at a time, and, sitting there calling for Mar to join me, I wove a necklace for her. She refused to come. She was frightened. I kept calling, and finally she edged out, broke into a run and fell heavily down beside me, winded. I put the necklace of dragon's guts around her neck. She threw it off and shuddered. That woman. Throwing away what any civilized woman would have done most anything to own. I retrieved it. «Look,» I said, «I know you're uneducated, but this is silly.» «I don't want dirty dragon's guts on me,» she said. «Are they not pretty?» «Well, yes, in a sort of way,» she admitted. «Among my people they are treasured and worn by only the bravest of the brave, those who have slain dragons.» «Ugg,» Mar said, as I put the necklace back around her neck. Slowly, cautiously, I began to explore the field of the dead dragons. Soon I became confident. They were all dead. I moved freely from one to the other. All were damaged. One was split wide open. I explored. There were plenty of veins for the taking, so I stocked up and then found smaller pieces of broken skin suitable for arrow heads. A clear piece of something, dragon's bone, maybe, was so sharp I kept it. It would be great for scraping skins. It was rounded on one edge, about a finger's joint thick, and sheared into a sharp edge which ran across the curve of it. I could look through it and see things on the other side, but they were distorted and twisted, curved and funny. Never had I seen such a treasure as that field of dragons. «It must be,» I said, «where all dragons come to die.» «Then let us leave, before one comes which is not quite dead,» Mar said. The animals of the fields had made nests in some of the dragons. It was good hunting. We slept there, in that graveyard of terrible beasts, Mar Читать дальше