The Veiled Throne, page 7
“If you promise not to bite me, I will lead you to a safe place where you can lie down and rest,” said Afir. The wolf agreed.
Afir led her into a copse near the oasis, and pointed to a flat part of the ground where the grass was tamped down to make an inviting bed. The wolf staggered toward it, but she kept an eye on Afir, thinking to leap unexpectedly and catch her by surprise.
But just as the wolf stepped over the bed and tensed her legs, the ground gave way, and she fell into a pit Afir had dug ahead of time. Kikisavo jumped into the pit and wrapped Péten’s whale sinew around the wolf’s muzzle. The wolf yielded and lay flat on the floor of the pit, her tail between her legs.
Kikisavo and Afir unmuzzled her.
“I am Diasa, the vigorous huntress,” said the wolf. “But I must admit that you’re stronger.”
“How can humans return to paradise?” asked Kikisavo and Afir.
“Though I can rip apart a thousand mouflon and crunch the bones of a thousand-thousand aurochs, I don’t know the answer to that,” said Diasa. “But I will teach you how to fight with the weapons of defeated enemies, their teeth and claws, and defend yourself with the armor of vanquished foes, their skulls and head-tents. Here, take my foreleg and my teeth, and make them into a war club and pellets for a slingshot.”
Kikisavo and Afir thanked her and went on their way.
They trekked toward the center, the heart of the scrublands. There, they met a long-haired bull who pawed the ground and snorted and would not let them pass. For ten days and ten nights Kikisavo and Afir wrestled the bull, throwing him to the ground by his horns only to have the bull get up again to charge them. Finally, Afir blinded the bull with well-placed shots of wolf’s teeth, and Kikisavo slammed the war club made from the wolf’s leg right into the bull’s nose, stunning him. They staked him to the ground with the sinew-rope.
“I am Toryoana, the patient healer,” said the bull. “But I must admit that you’re more persistent.”
“How can humans return to paradise?” asked Kikisavo and Afir.
“Though I can run a thousand miles from the shore of the Sea of Tears to the placid mirror of Aluro’s Basin, and I can chew the toughest grass a thousand-thousand times until it turns into nourishing food, I don’t know the answer to that,” said Toryoana. “But I will teach you how to herd cattle and sheep so that you can drink their milk and eat their flesh. Here, take this pouch, made from my stomach. You can fill it with milk and ferment it into cheese and yogurt, which cure a thousand-thousand-thousand ailments.”
Kikisavo and Afir thanked him and went on their way.
They turned to the north and approached the frozen ice fields, where pure white star-snout bears hunted seadogs. There, a giant bear stopped them and demanded to eat one of the pair because she was hungry.
“You’ll have to catch us first,” said Kikisavo and Afir.
The two leapt from floe to floe across the frigid sea, and the white bear roared and followed. For ten days and ten nights they traversed that no-man’s-land, where every breath froze instantly into blossoms of delicate icy tendrils and drifted away on the howling wind. Only by drinking kyoffir did the companions manage to survive the deadly cold, and finally, they ensnared the bear with ropes of whale sinew and tipped her into a hole in the ice. Every time the bear tried to climb up onto the ice, Kikisavo smacked her head with the war club and Afir shot at her delicate nose with wolf’s teeth, forcing the bear to lift her paws for protection and therefore slip back into the deadly water. The bear yielded.
“I am Nalyufin, the hate-hearted,” said the bear. “But I must admit that you’re more ruthless.”
“How can humans return to paradise?” asked Kikisavo and Afir.
“Though I can swim for a hundred days in the icy sea, keeping my breath warm by the blood of a thousand seadogs, I don’t know the answer to that,” said Nalyufin. “But I will teach you how to make clothing and shelter out of the skins and hides of animals, and to fashion tent poles and stakes from their bones. Here, take my skin and skull, wear them to ward off both the cold wind and blows from your enemies.”
Kikisavo and Afir thanked her and went on their way.
They turned to the east and hiked until the land became shrouded in mist, as though it had not fully emerged from the primordial milk. The companions became lost, and for ten days and ten nights they wandered through the thick fog, unable to tell which way was east or west, up or down.
Where had the mist come from?
As Kikisavo and Afir defeated god after god, they also grew stronger. Humans had now learned to hunt and fish and herd, to drink milk and make cheese, to seek comfort in kyoffir, to protect themselves from the elements with clothing and shelter, to fight with weapons and wield tools. They were almost as powerful as the gods, and if they also became gods, was there enough room in the sky to hold all the new stars?
“Can you give them paradise again?” asked the All-Father and Every-Mother.
“It’s too late now,” lamented the younger gods. “We’ve already destroyed it in our wild rumpus.”
The All-Father and the Every-Mother and their divine children decided to hide far in the east, away from humans, and to bar their way with a sea of impenetrable fog produced by garinafins.
For you see, back then garinafins did not breathe fire. They could only drink water and spray mist. The gods had made the fog wall by tying all the world’s garinafins to stakes in the ground in a row, and then stomping on their tails to make them spit and spray.
Inside the fog there was no day or night, no rain or sunshine, only a perpetual grayness that muffled all sound and obscured all sight. No matter how hard Kikisavo swung his war club, he could not smash through the billowing mist, which flowed back and filled any gap as soon as it was created. No matter how quickly Afir worked her slingshot, she could not strike another creature, person, or god.
The heroes Kikisavo and Afir huddled under the bearskin and drank the last of their kyoffir, but they knew that if they couldn’t find their way out of the fog, they were doomed. For a hundred days and a hundred nights they fought against that lightless, shadowless, changeless, mindless mist of despair, an absence of all strife and action that deadened all feeling.
But then, a ray of sunlight parted the mist and lit up the bearskin tent. A golden-feathered eagle descended on this beam of light and landed before the tent, where she turned into a beautiful maiden, with hair as bright as the sun and skin as fair as purest snow.
“I am Cudyufin, the Well of Daylight,” said the maiden. “I have come to bring you a gift.”
“But we haven’t defeated you,” said Kikisavo and Afir. The two companions were wise, for unlike tributes from defeated enemies, gifts could not be trusted, and those from gods even less so.
“Never mind that,” said Cudyufin. “I bring you the gift of fire, which will allow you to eat that which had once been inedible, to destroy that which had once been indestructible, to be warm in the heart of winter, to see in the depth of the night. With fire, you can reshape the land, clear the scrubs, and bring the tender long-ear grass that will fatten your herds and invite more game. With fire, you can harden your weapons and crack stone and rock. It will allow humans to live almost as gods.”
Despite their misgivings, Kikisavo and Afir were tempted. This wasn’t paradise, but it sounded so much better than what they had.
“Come with me so that you can take the seed of fire back to your people,” said Cudyufin, and the two companions followed her.
As the goddess walked through the mist, a path opened immediately before her but quickly filled in after her passing. The two humans had to follow very closely. And then, abruptly, the goddess dashed forward, and the mist closed up behind her, stranding the two companions.
“Wait!” cried out Kikisavo and Afir, but the goddess did not reappear.
The two humans ran forward, and suddenly, the ground gave way beneath their feet. As they fell, the mist cleared around them, and they plunged into a lake of burning fire.
The gods had planned this trick. Because they could not defeat the heroes with despair, they decided to lure them with false hope, which was even more deadly.
Kikisavo and Afir fought in the sea of fire, but fire was not an enemy that you could wrestle or shoot or muzzle or crush. The bearskin went up in smoke; the skull helmet cracked and fell away; the pouch of kyoffir burst; the war club and slingshot turned into torches; the sinew rope shriveled and charred. Fire scarred their naked bodies and singed their hair.
Worst of all, they could not breathe or speak. Smoke filled their lungs and mouths and nostrils, and like Liluroto inside Diaarura, without breath, without voice, there is no life.
Just as they were about to abandon all hope, a garinafin swung his long neck over the pit of fire and spoke to the heroes.
“Do you want me to free you?” asked the garinafin.
“What will you ask in return?”
“That you free me,” said the garinafin. And the two humans saw that the garinafin was tethered to the shore of the fire lake with thick bundles of sinew.
“We swear by the lives of our unborn children that if you save us, we will free you and be friends forever.”
And the garinafin opened his mouth and sprayed water like a thunderstorm. The fire around the companions hissed and went out.
Kikisavo and Afir climbed out of the charcoaled pit and worked at the sinew binding the garinafin. They had lost all the trophies they obtained from the defeated gods, so they tore at the thick bundles with their nails and bit the ropes with their teeth. Blood seeped from their fingers and gums as their teeth cracked and their nails were torn from their roots. But they would not relent. A promise was a promise, especially a promise for freedom.
Only when the heroes had lost their last tooth and nail did they finally break the last sinew rope. The garinafin asked them to climb up on his back, and then he dipped his head to swallow the embers smoldering in the pit. With the two humans secure on his back, the garinafin took off.
The gods, amazed that their plan had been foiled again, chased after the garinafin, trying to bring him down to the ground. But the garinafin was too strong and swift, and he managed to carry Kikisavo and Afir back home. The garinafin spat out some fire on the ground.
“The gift of Cudyufin!” the two companions exclaimed in astonishment.
“You should always take what is yours,” said the garinafin, “even if it was offered with ill intentions.”
And this was how the humans learned all the secrets that would allow them to thrive on the scrublands.
The gods would not give up, though, and they brought back the monsters that had driven the people out of paradise and sent them after the humans. There were sharks who walked on land, horrid wolves with twenty jaws, garinafins with seven heads, tusked tigers whose silent roar flattened thousands in a single moment. Once again, elders and children cried out in terror and men and women died in the onslaught.
Kikisavo and Afir were too injured to fight, but the garinafin spoke to them, “You have freed me and I you. We are friends unto eternity. We have defeated the gods before, and we will do so again.”
And the garinafin took off again and met the tide of monsters without fear. He spat fire against the hordes and ripped apart any who slipped through with his talons, and for ten days and ten nights, no monster dared to emerge from the mist to set foot in the scrublands, so fierce was this defender.
But in the end, the garinafin was too exhausted to stay aloft, and with an earth-shattering moan, he fell from the skies.
Where he fell, he turned into a giant mountain range. A thousand-thousand monsters were crushed by his weight, and the rest scattered into the mist on the other side. Even in death, the garinafin was ready to defend his friends.
And that was how the alliance between humans and garinafins was forged. They had freed each other from enslavement, and they would stand together, even against the gods.
The people honored Kikisavo and Afir in a great victory celebration.
“What is there for them to celebrate?” asked the jealous gods of one another. “Kikisavo and Afir haven’t found the way back to paradise.”
“No,” said Diaarura, the Every-Mother. “They brought back to their people the most precious gift of all.”
“What is this gift?” asked the gods. “Herding and trapping?”
Diaarura shook her head.
“Milk and kyoffir?”
Diaarura shook her head.
“Weapons and skull helmets?”
Diaarura shook her head.
“Clothing and shelter?”
Diaarura shook her head.
“Fire?”
“The friendship of garinafins?”
Diaarura shook her head. “No, the most precious gift of all is the indomitable spirit of the warrior. Though the breath of divinity has left the humans, they now understand that there is nothing to be feared so long as they are willing to fight.”
And that is why even the gods gaze upon the spirit portraits of great warriors and cross their wrists to show respect.
* * *
“Did the gods ever make their peace with humans?” asked Oga, when it seemed that Goztan would say no more.
“Yes,” said Goztan. “Eventually Péten convinced the gods to stop fearing the people, and he had to use many tricks to do so. But that’s a different story.”
“What happened to Kikisavo and Afir after their victory?” asked Oga.
“Oh, I don’t like the rest of the story as much. They fought with each other over who should get the bigger share of credit for stealing fire from the gods, and sundered their friendship in pride.”
She did not add that there were many versions of this story, varying from tribe to tribe. She did not add that in some variations, Afir betrayed Kikisavo and killed him by drowning him in a water bubble in the grass sea. She did not add that in other variations, Kikisavo betrayed Afir and killed her by sneaking up on her from behind to bash in her skull. She did not add that the Roatan clan, the lineage of Pékyu Tenryo, traced their ancestry back to Kikisavo, or that the Aragoz clan, the lineage of Pékyu Nobo, traced their ancestry back to Afir. She did not add that wars had been fought to determine which version was the truth, and more wars might be fought still.
Much as she liked this man of Dara, she did not think he would understand a story of how two people, as close as votan-sa-taasa, could stand together against adversity yet could not share the fruits of their rebellion against the gods in peace. She did not think he would understand how a people who loved freedom in the deepest part of their souls could contemplate the enslavement of the Agon or shackle young garinafins to compel the obedience of vast armies composed of their elders. Indeed, sometimes she scarcely understood these changes herself. The stories of her people were complicated and contradictory, and she was protective of their delicate beauty, afraid that the stranger would find them wanting, would judge her people harshly.
With a start, she realized that she cared what he thought. Why? Wasn’t he a man of Dara, an enemy?
“Ah,” said Oga. “That is sad. Even in fighting for freedom, humans can’t seem to… be better than human.”
“That is true,” she said, her voice full of relief. He had not attributed the faults of Kikisavo and Afir to some essence of the Lyucu, but to human nature. “You should hear this story told by a shaman through a voice painting dance. There are songs and dances and much lore that I can’t even remember. This is barely an outline.”
“I liked the way you told it just fine.”
“I wish I could tell stories the way you do, with poems and gestures and banging against the deck of the city-ship so it sounds like the thrashing of a whale’s tail,” she said, thinking of the difficulty of articulating what one truly meant—to friends, loved ones, but especially to foes.
“Oh, you’re talking about performance,” he said, waving his hand through the air dismissively. “What I did was nothing. I think you put on the much better act during that turtle-shell story for Dathama.”
She laughed nervously. “I was just following your lead.”
“You added some nice touches. That trick with the ‘word-scars’ was inspired.”
She tensed. “What do you mean?”
“You speak Dara far better than you let on to Dathama.”
She said nothing.
“All this time we’ve been talking, you haven’t made any mistakes like the ones you made on the beach, when we put on that show. I think you made those errors on purpose.”
“And what purpose is that?”
“You wore those mistakes like a disguise, a way to make him see what he wants to see. I think you’re telling an elaborate story, a very long story. I just don’t know the ending you have in mind yet.”
She regretted talking to him for so long. He had such a disarming demeanor that it was easy to become complacent, to forget that he was her enemy. She was risking everything the pékyu and the other Lyucu women had worked so hard to accomplish.
She had to change the subject.
“You give me too much credit,” she said. “I was nervous, and perhaps Dathama and you both simply saw and heard what you wanted to see and hear. Neither the whale nor the shrimp can see the sea urchin crawling across the barren seafloor the way she sees herself.”
He smiled and then looked wistful. “I was hoping that we could speak as friends, as votan-sa-taasa rather than a man of Dara and a woman of Ukyu.”
For a moment, thinking of the scars he had shown her, she almost felt guilty. She thought of the story he had told about the whale and the shrimp—is it truly impossible to imagine the life of another, to strive for a different view?
But then, the details in his story came into focus, like the way the world emerged out of the dawn mist after a winter storm on the scrublands.
“You were not speaking as a brother,” she said, “but as a seducer with a mask.”
“What?” he asked, sounding genuinely shocked.
“That story you told me about your gods,” she said. “It wasn’t a story you learned in Dara, was it?”
