The White Wolf, page 40
“I haven’t seen anything close to that since I was in the Lower Devonian,” I said. I was still shaking. The word devour had gained a fresh resonance for me. “Did it mean to attack us?”
“It probably hoped to eat us, but those are known along this river as the Cowardly Serpents. It takes little to drive them off as you saw, although if they capsize your canoe, you are in some danger, of course.”
Much as I was trained not to think in linearities I was aware that in this realm gigantic water-serpents had long since become extinct. I put this to Ayanawatta as he paddled to where his spear floated, shaft up, in the reedy, eddying water. A strong smell of firs and the noise of feeding birds came from the bank, and I drank in the simplicity of it to steady myself. I knew the supernatural better than that which my husband insisted on calling “natural,” but I felt resentful that I was being forced to take extra risks as I sought to save him. I said as much to Ayanawatta.
The Mohawk prince reassured me. He was simply obeying the demands of his dream-quest. This meant that my own dream-quest was in accordance with his, which meant that as long as we continued in the current pattern and made no serious mistakes our quests would be successful. We should both get what we desired.
The wind was still blustering and slapping at our clothes. I drew my blanket closer. Ayanawatta hardly noticed the drop in temperature. As for the “prehistoric” nature of our dangers, he regretted that some sort of crisis had occurred. Such anomalies were becoming increasingly common. He believed that the source of our own troubles was also causing the disruptions. The great prairies offered natural grazing and ample prey for predators. They were, he admitted, generally moving south these days, and the altering climate took increasing numbers of those that remained.
I said that I had noticed it growing colder.
Still apparently oblivious of the chill, Ayanawatta sighed. “Once,” he said, “this was all unspoiled. Those serpents would never have come this far downriver. It means you lose all the river game, and before you know it the whole natural order is turned upside down. The consequences are disastrous. It becomes impossible to lead any kind of settled life. Do you see any villages on the banks these days? Of course not! It used to be wonderful here. Girls would wave at you. People would invite you in to hear your stories…”
Grumbling thus, he paddled mechanically for a while. The encounter with the river serpent had not so much frightened as irritated him. Even I had not been terrified of the beast. But Ayanawatta’s sense of order and protocol was upset, and he was becoming concerned, he said, about the wind.
Again he surprised me. He had a habit of noticing everything while appearing to be entirely concerned with his own words. For such people, words were sometimes a kind of barrier, the eye of a storm, from which part of them could observe the world without the world ever guessing.
The wind was the king of the prairie, Ayanawatta continued. The most important force. He suspected that we had somehow engaged its anger.
He paused in his paddling and took out his flute. He blew a few experimental notes, then began a high, slow tune which made use of the echoes from the distant mountains and turned them back and forth so that once again it seemed the whole of the natural world was singing with him.
The wind dropped suddenly. And as it dropped, Ayanawatta’s flute died away.
The extraordinary scenery seemed to go on for ever, changing as the light changed, until it was close to twilight. The river ahead had begun to rumble and hiss. Ayanawatta said we would have to bypass the rapids tomorrow. Meanwhile we would make camp before sunset, and this time, he promised, he would catch whatever fish the serpent had left us.
In the morning when I awoke, Ayanawatta was gone. The only movement was the lazy smoke from his fire, the only sound the distant lapping of water and the melancholy wail of a river bird. I felt the ground shiver under me. Was this the sound of the rapids he had spoken about?
I rose quickly, hardly able to believe I was not experiencing an earthquake. I heard the chirping of frogs and insects, steady, high. I smelled the smoke and the rich, earthy pines, the acrid oaks and sweet ash. I heard a bird flap and dive, and then I heard a disturbance in the water. I looked up and saw a hawk carrying a bird in its talons. I found myself wondering about the magical meaning of what I had seen.
The earth shuddered again, and wood snapped within the forest. I looked for Ayanawatta’s bow and arrows, but they were gone. I found one of his lances, still in the bottom of the boat, and armed myself with it. As I turned, however, it became immediately obvious that a stone lance, even a magic one, might not be much use against this newcomer. Out of the thick woods, scattering branches and leaves in all directions, a fantastic apparition loomed over me.
While I was familiar with the Asian use of domestic elephants, I had never seen a man seated on the back of a black woolly mammoth with tusks at least nine feet long curving out over an area of at least twenty feet!
The rider approaching me was clearly a warrior of the region, but with subtle differences of dress, black face-paint, shaven head, scalp lock worn long, a lance and a war-shield held in his left hand, his right hand gripping the decorated reins of his huge mount. It was impossible to judge the rider’s size, but it was clear the mammoth was not young. The old tusks were splintered and bound but could still very easily kill almost anything which attacked their owner.
My heart thumped with sickening speed. I looked for some advantage. At the last moment the mammoth’s trunk rose in a gesture of peace. At the same time the painted warrior raised his palm to reassure me.
The mammoth swung her weight forward and began to lower herself onto her knees as the newcomer slid blithely down her back and landed on the turf.
His tone was at odds with his ferocious black mask. “The prophecy told me I would meet my friend Ayanawatta here but only hinted at his companion. I am sorry if I alarmed you. Please forgive the death paint. I’ve been in a fairly intense dispute.”
This thoroughly decorated man had a similar grace of manner to Ayanawatta, but something about his movements was familiar to me. His posture, however, was more brooding. His paint was a black, glowing mask in which two dark rubies burned. I held on to the spear and took a step back. I began to feel sicker still as I recognised him.
Silently, fascinated, I waited for him to approach.
3 A Prince of the Prairie
Do not ask me how I came here,
Do not ask my name or nation,
Do not ask my destination,
For I am Dawandada, the Far Sighted,
Dawandada, Seer and Singer,
Who bore the lance, the Justice Bringer,
Who brought the law out of the East,
Sworn to seek but never speak.
—W.S. Harte,
The Maker of Laws
He was, of course, the same youth I had seen at the house. His face was so thickly painted I knew him only by his white hands and red eyes. He did not appear to recognise me at all and seemed a little disappointed. “Do you know where Ayanawatta is?”
I guessed he’d failed to find fish in the river and had gone hunting in the woods, since his bow and a lance were missing.
“Well, we have some big game to hunt now,” the newcomer said. “I’ve found him at last. I would have reached him sooner if I had understood my pygmy dream better.” This was offered as apology. He returned to his mount and led the great woolly black pachyderm down to the water to drink. I admired the saddle blanket and the beaded bridle. Attached to the intricately carved wooden saddle was a long, painted quiver from which the sharp metal tongues of several lances jutted. Beaver and otter fur covered the saddle and parts of his bridle. The mammoth herself was, as I had thought, not in her prime. There were grizzled marks around her mouth and trunk, and her ivory was stained and cracked, but she moved with surprising speed, turning her vast, tusked head once to look into my eyes, perhaps to convince herself that I was friendly. Reassured, she dipped her trunk delicately into the cold water, her hairy tail swinging back and forth, twitching with pleasure.
As his mount quenched her mighty thirst, the young man knelt beside the water and began rubbing the black paint from his face, hair and arms. When he stood up he was once again the youth I had seen at the house. His wet hair was still streaked with mud or whatever he had put in it, but it was as white as my own. He seemed about ten years younger than me. His face had none of the terror and pleading I had seen such a short time before. He was ebullient, clearly pleased with himself.
I chose to keep my own counsel. Before I offered too much, I would wait until I had a better idea of what all this meant. I would instead give him a hint.
“I am Oona, Elric’s daughter,” I said. This apparently was nothing to him, but he sensed I expected him to recognise me.
“That’s a fairly common name,” he said. “Have we met before?”
“I thought we had.”
He frowned politely and then shook his head. “I should have remembered you. Here, I have never seen a woman of my own colouring and size.” He was unsurprised.
“Were you expecting to see me?”
“You are White Buffalo Woman?”
“I believe so.”
“Then I was expecting to see you. We play out our parts within the prophecy, eh?” He winked. “If we do not, the pathways tangle and strangle themselves. We should lose all we’ve gained. If you had not been here, at the time I foretold, then I should have been concerned. But it disturbs me that the third of our trio is missing.”
I knew enough of travellers’ etiquette not to ask him any more than he told me. Many supernatural travellers, using whatever means they choose, must work for years to reach a certain road, a particular destination. With a single wrong step or misplaced word, their destination is gone again! To know the future too well is to change it.
“What name will you give for yourself?” I asked.
“My spirit name is White Crow,” said the youth, “and I am a student with the Kakatanawa, sent, as my family always sends its children, to learn from them. My quest joins with yours at this point. I have already completed my first three tasks. This will be my fourth and last great task. You will help me here as I will help you later. Everything becomes clear at the right time. We all work to save the Balance.” He had undone the straps holding the surprisingly light saddle and supported it as it slid towards him, dumping it heavily to the ground, the spears rattling. “We walk the path of the Balance.” He spoke almost offhandedly, filling a big skin of water and washing down the black mammoth’s legs and belly. “And this old girl is called Bes. The word means ‘queen’ in her language. She, too, serves the Balance well.” With a grunt and a great heave, Bes moved deeper into the water, then lifted her long, supple trunk and sprayed her own back, luxuriating in the absence of her saddle.
“The Cosmic Balance?”
“The Balance of the world,” he said, clearly unfamiliar with my phrase. “Has Ayanawatta told you nothing? He grows more discreet.” The young man grinned and pushed back his wet hair. “The Lord of Winds has gone mad and threatens to destroy our longhouse and all that it protects.” He took bunches of grass and began to clean the long, curving tusks as his animal wallowed deeper into the stream, gazing at him with fierce affection. “My task was to seek the lost treasures of the Kakatanawa and bring them to our longhouse so that our home tree will not die. It is my duty and my privilege, for me to serve thus.”
“And what are these treasures?” I asked.
“Together they comprise the Soul of the World. Once they are restored, they will be strong enough to withstand the Lord of the Winds. The power of all these elementals increases. They do not merely threaten our lives but our way of thinking. A generation ago we all understood the meaning and value of our ways. Now even the great Lords of the Higher Worlds forget.”
I was already familiar with those insane Lords and Ladies of Law who had lost all sense of their original function. They had gone mad in defence of their own power, their own orthodoxy. Lords of the Wind normally served neither Law nor Chaos, but like all elementals had no special loyalties, except to blood and tradition. White Crow agreed.
“There’s a madness in Chaos,” he said, “just as there can be in Law. These forces take many forms and many names across the multiverse. To call them Good or Evil is never to know them, never to control them, for there are times when Chaos does good and Law does evil and vice versa. The tiniest action of any kind can have extreme and monumental consequences. Out of the greatest acts of evil can spring the greatest powers for good. Equally, from acts of great goodness, pure evil can spring. That is the first thing any adept learns. Only then can their education truly begin.” He spoke almost like a schoolboy who had only recently learned these truths.
Clearly there was a connection with the events Ulric and I had experienced earlier, but it was a subtle one. This battle for the Balance never ended. For it to end would probably be a contradiction in terms. Upon the Balance depended the central paradox of all existence. Without life there is no death. Without death there is no life. Without Law, no Chaos. Without Chaos, no Law. And the balance was maintained by the tensions between the two forces. Without those tensions, without the Balance, we should know only a moment’s consciousness as we faced oblivion. Time would die. We would live that unimaginably terrible final moment for eternity. Those were the stakes in the Game of Time. Law or Chaos. Life or Death. Good and evil were secondary qualities, often reflecting the vast variety of values by which conscious creatures conduct their affairs across the multiverse. Yet a system which accepted so many differing values, such a wealth of altering realities, could not exist without morality, and it was the learning of those ethics and values which concerned an apprentice mukhamir. Until it was possible to look beyond any system to the individual, the would-be adept remained blind to the supernatural and generally at its mercy.
I was also beginning to realise very rapidly that these events were all connected with the ongoing struggle we wanted to think finished when the war against Hitler was won.
“Do you journey back to your people?” I asked.
“I must not return empty-handed,” he told me, and changed the subject, pointing and laughing with joy at a flight of geese settling in the shadowy shallows of the river. “Did you know you are being observed?” he asked almost absently as he admired the geese, graceful now in the water.
A whoop from the trees, and Ayanawatta, holding a couple of birds aloft in one hand and his bow in the other, called his pleasure. His friend could join us for breakfast.
The two men embraced. Again I was impressed by their magnetism. I congratulated myself that I was blessed with the best allies a woman could hope for. As long as their interests and mine were the same, I could do no better than go with them in what they were confident was their preordained destiny.
I waited impatiently in the hope that White Crow would again raise the subject of our being watched. Eventually, when the two had finished their manly exchanges, he pointed across the river to the north. “I myself have known you were on the river since I took the short cut, yonder.” He pointed back to where the river had meandered on its way to this spot. “They have made camp, so it is clear they follow you and no doubt wait to ambush you. It is their usual way with our people. A Pukawatchi war party. Seventeen of them. My enemies. They were chasing me, but I thought they had given up.”
Ayanawatta shrugged. “We’ll have a look at them later. They will not attack until they are certain of overwhelming us.”
White Crow expertly plucked and cleaned the birds while I drew up the fire. Ayanawatta washed himself thoroughly in the river, singing a song which I understood to be one of thanks for the game he had shot. He also sang a snatch or two of what was evidently a war-song. I could almost hear the drums beginning their distinctive warnings. I noticed that he kept a sideways eye on the northern horizon. Evidently the Pukawatchi were an enemy tribe.
I asked White Crow, as subtly I could, if he had ever been to an island house with two storeys and had a vision there. I was trying to discover if he remembered me or Ulric. He regretted, he said, that he was completely ignorant of the events I described. Had they happened recently? He had been in the south for some while.
I told him that the events still felt very recent to me. Since there was no way of pursuing the subject, I determined to waste no more time on it. I hoped more would come clear as we travelled.
I had begun to enjoy Ayanawatta’s songs and rituals. They were among the only constants in this strange world which seemed to hover at the edges of its own history. I became increasingly tolerant of his somewhat noisy habits, because I knew that in the forest he could be as quiet as a cat. As he was a naturally sociable and loquacious man, his celebratory mood was understandable.
My new friends added their share of herbs and berries to the slowly cooked meat, basting with a touch of wild honey, until it had all the subtle flavours of the best French kitchen. Like me, they knew that the secret of living in the wild was not to rough it, but to refine one’s pleasures and find pleasure in the few discomforts. Ironically, if one wished to live such a life, one had to be able to kill. Ayanawatta and White Crow regarded the dealing of death as an art and a responsibility. A respected animal you killed quickly without pain. A respected enemy might suffer an altogether different fate.
I was glad to be back in the forest, even if my errand was a desperate one. A properly relaxed body needs warmth but no special softness to rest well, and cold river water is exquisite for drinking and washing, while the flavours and scents of the woods present an incredible sensory vocabulary. Already my own senses and body were adapting to a way of life I had learned to prefer as a girl, before I had become what dreamthieves call a mukhamir, before going the way of the Great Game or making my vows of marriage and motherhood.
