"Cry them not forbidden, yet!" cried Deci, his crest rippling. "We knowthem not. To taboo them now would not be fair. They may come bearing gifts..."
"For gifts given, something always is taken. We have no wish to exchangeour young men for a look at the Strangers." Dobi furrowed the dust with hisfingers and smoothed away the furrows as Viat had been smoothed away.
"And yet," Veti"s soft voice came clearly as her blue crest caught thebreeze, "it may be that they will have knowledge for us that we have not.Never have we taken craft into the clouds and back."
"Yes, yes!" Deci"s eyes embraced Veti, who held his heart. "They must havemuch knowledge, many gifts for us."
"The gift of knowledge is welcome," said Tefu in his low rumble. "But giftsin the hands have fangs and bonds."
"The old words!" cried Deci. "The old ways do not hold when new waysarrive!"
"True," nodded Dobi. "If the new is truly a way and not a whirlwind or atrail that goes no place. But to judge without facts is to judge in error. Iwill go to the strangers."
"And I." Tefu"s voice stirred like soft thunder. "And I? And I?" Deci"s words tumbled on themselves and the dust stirred with his hurried rising."Young-" muttered Tefu.
"Young eyes to notice what old eyes might miss," said Dobi. "Our path isyours." His crest rippled as he nodded to Deci.
"Deci!" Veti"s voice was shaken by the unknown. "Come not again as Viatcame. The heart you bear with you is not your own."
"I will come again," cried Deci, "to fill your hands with wonders anddelights." He gave each of her cupped palms a kiss to hold against his return.
Time is not hours and days, or the slanting and shortening of shadows. Timeis a held breath and a listening ear.
Time incredible pa.s.sed before the ripple through the gra.s.s, the rustlethrough reeds, the sudden sound of footsteps where it seemed no footstepscould be. The rocks seemed to part to let them through.
Dobi led, limping, slow of foot, flattened of crest, his eyes hidden in theshadow of his bent head. Then came Tefu, like one newly blind, groping,reaching, b.u.mping, reeling until he huddled against the familiar rocks in thefading sunlight.
"Deci?" cried Veti, parting the crowd with her cry. "Deci?"
"He came not with us," said Dobi. "He watched us go." "Willingly?" Veti"shands clenched over the memory of his mouth. "Willingly? Or was there force?"
"Willingly?" The eyes that Tefu turned to Veti saw her not. They lookedwithin at hidden things. "Force? He stayed. There were no bonds about him." Hetouched a wondering finger to one eye and then the other. "Open," he rumbled."Where is the light?" "Tell me," cried Veti. "Oh, tell me!" Dobi sat in thedust, his big hands marking it on either side of him.
"They truly have wonders. They would give us many strange things for ourdevi." His fingers tinkled the fringing of his jacket. "Fabrics beyond ourdreams. Tools we could use. Weapons that could free the land of everyflesh-hungry kutu."
"And Deci? And Deci?" Veti voiced her fear again.
"Deci saw all and desired all. His devi were ripped off before the sun slidan arm"s reach. He was like a child in a meadow of flowers, clutching,grabbing, crumpling and finding always the next flower fairer."
Wind came in the silence and poured itself around bare shoulders.
"Then he will return," said Veti, loosening her clenched hand. "When thewonder is gone."
"As Viat returned?" Tefu"s voice rumbled. "As I have returned?" He held his hand before his eyes and dropped his fingers one by one. "How many fingersbefore you? Six? Four? Two?"
"You saw the Strangers, before we withdrew the coveti. You saw the strangegarments they wore, the shining roundness, the heavy glitter and thickness.Our air is not air for them. Without the garments, they would die."
"If they are so well wrapped against the world, how could they hurt?" criedVeti. "They cannot hurt Devi. He will return."
"I returned," murmured Tefu. "I did but walk among them and the misting oftheir finished breath has done this to me. Only time and the Hidden Ones knowif sight is through for me.
"One was concerned for me. One peered at me when first my steps began towaver. He hurried me away from the others and sat away from me and watchedwith me as the lights went out. He was concerned for me-or was studying me.But I am blind."
"And you?" asked Veti of Dobi. "It harmed you not?"
"I took care," said Dobi. "I came not close after the first meeting. Andyet . . ." he turned the length of his thigh. From hip to knee the split fleshglinted like the raking of a mighty claw. "I was among the trees when a kutuscreamed on the hill above me. Fire lashed out from the Strangers and itscreamed no more. Startled, I moved the branches about me and-s-s-s-s-st!" Hisfinger streaked beside his thigh.
"But Deci-"
Dobi scattered his dust handprint with a swirl of his fingers. "Deci islike a scavenging mayu. He follows, hand outstretched. "Wait, wait," he criedwhen we turned to go. "We can lead the world with these wonders.""
"Why should we lead the world? Now there is no first and no last. Whyshould we reach beyond our brothers to grasp things that dust will claim?"
"Wail him dead, Veti," rumbled Tefu. "Death a thousand ways surrounds himnow. And if his body comes again, his heart is no longer with us. Wail himdead."
"Yes," nodded Dobi. "Wail him dead and give thanks that our coveti is sosecurely hidden that the Strangers can never come to sow among us the seeds ofmore Viats and Tefus."
"The Strangers are taboo! The coveti path is closed." So Veti wailed himdead, crouching in the dust of the coveti path, clutching in her hands thekiom Deci had given her with his heart. Viat"s mother sat with her anhour-until Veti broke her wail and cried, "Your grief is not mine. You pinnedViat"s kiom. You folded his hands to rest. You gave him back to earth. Wailnot with me. I wail for an emptiness- for an unknowledge. For a wondering anda fearing. You know Viat is on the trail to the Hidden Ones. But I know not ofDeci. Is he alive? Is he dying in the wilderness with no pelu to light himinto the darkness? Is he crawling now, blind and maimed up the coveti trail? Iwail a death with no hope. A hopelessness with no death. I wail alone."
And so she wailed past the point of tears, into the aching dryness ofgrief. The coveti went about its doing, knowing she would live again whengrief was spent.
Then came the day when all faces swung to the head of the coveti trail. Allears flared to the sound of Veti"s scream and all eyes rounded to see Decistagger into the coveti.
Veti flew to him, her arms outstretched, her heart believing before hermind could confirm. But Deci winced away from her touch and his face halfsnarled as his hand, shorn of three fingers and barely beginning toregenerate, motioned her away.
"Deci!" cried Veti, "Deci?"
"Let-let-me breathe." Deci leaned against the rocks. Deci who could outruna kutu, whose feet had lightness and swiftness beyond all others in thecoveti. "The trail takes the breath."
"Deci!" Veti"s hands still reached, one all unknowingly proffering thekiom. Seeing it, she laughed and cast it aside. The death mark with Deci alivebefore her? "Oh, Deci!" And then she fell silent as she saw his maimed hand,his ragged crest, his ravaged jacket, his seared legs -his eyes- His eyes!They were not the eyes of the Deci who had gone with eagerness to see theStrangers. He had brought the Strangers back in his eyes.
His breath at last came smoothly and he leaned to Veti, reaching as he didso, into the bundle by his side.
"I promised," he said, seeing Veti only. "I have come again to fill yourhands with wonder and delight."
But Veti"s hands were hidden behind her. Gifts from strangers are suspect.
"Here," said Deci, laying an ugly angled thing down in the dust beforeVeti. "Here is death to all kutus, be they six-legged or two. Let the Durlocoveti say again the Klori stream is theirs for fishing," he muttered."Nothing is theirs now save by our sufferance. I give you power, Veti."
Veti moved back a pace.
"And here," he laid a flask of gla.s.s beside the weapon. "This is for dreamsand laughter. This is what Viat drank of-but too much. They call it water. It is a drink the Hidden Ones could envy. One mouthful and all memory of pain andgrief, loss and unreachable dreams is gone.
"I give you forgetfulness, Veti." Veti"s head moved denyingly from side toside. "And here." He pulled forth, carelessly, arms-lengths of shining fabricthat rippled and clung and caught the sun. His eyes were almost Deci"s eyesagain.
Veti"s heart was moved, womanwise, to the fabric and her hands reached forit, since no woman can truly see a fabric unless her fingers taste its body,flow, and texture.
"For you, for beauty. And this, that you might behold yourself untwisted bymoving waters." He laid beside the weapon and the water a square of reflectingbrightness. "For you to see yourself as Lady over the world as I see myselfLord."
Veti"s hands dropped again, the fabric almost untasted. Deci"s eyes againwere the eyes of a stranger.
"Deci, I waited not for things, these long days." Veti"s hands cleansedthemselves together from the cling of the fabric. Her eyes failed before Deciand sought the ground, jerking away from the strange things in the dust."Come, let us attend to your hurts."
"But no! But see!" cried Deci. "With these strange things our coveti canrule all the valley and beyond and beyond!"
"Why?"
"Why?" echoed Deci. "To take all we want. To labor no more save to ask andreceive. To have power..."
"Why?" Veti"s eyes still questioned. "We have enough. We are not hungry. Weare clothed against the changing seasons. We work when work is needed. We playwhen work is done. Why do we need more?"
"Deci finds quiet ways binding," said Dobi. "Rather would he have shoutingand far, swift going. And sweat and effort and delicious fear pushing him intoaction. Soon come the kutu hunting days, Deci. Save your thirst for excitementuntil then."
"Sweat and effort and fear!" snarled Deci. "Why should I endure that whenwith this . . ." He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the weapon and with one wave of his handsheared off the top of Tefu"s house. He spoke into the dying thunder of thedischarge. "No kutu alive could unsheath its fangs after that, except as deathdraws back the sheath to mock its finished strength.
"And if so against a kutu," he muttered. "How much more so against theDurlo coveti?"
"Come, Deci," cried Veti. "Let us bind your wounds. As time will heal them,so time will heal your mind of these Strangers."
"I want no healing," shouted Deci, anger twisting his haggard face. "Norwill you after the Strangers have been here and proffered you their wonders inexchange for this foolish fringing devi." Contempt tossed his head. "For thedevi in our coveti, we could buy their sky craft, I doubt not."
"They will not come," said Dobi. "The way is hidden. No Stranger can everfind our coveti. We have but to wait until-"
"Until tomorrow!" Deci"s crest tossed rebelliously, his voice louder thanneed be. Or perhaps it seemed so from the echoes it raised in every heart. "Itold-"
"You told?" Stupidly, the echo took words.
"You told?" Disbelief sharpened the cry.
"You told!" Anger spurted into the words.
"I told!" cried Deci. "How else reap the benefits that the Strangers-"
"Benefits!" spat Dobi, "Death!" His foot spurned the weapon in the dust."Madness!" The flask gurgled as it moved. "Vanity!" Dust clouded across themirror and streaked the shining fabric. "For such you have betrayed us todeath."
"But no!" cried Deci. "I lived. Death does not always come with theStrangers." Sudden anger roughened his voice. "It"s the old ways! You want nochange! But all things change. It is the way of living things. Progress-"
"All change is not progress," rumbled Tefu, his hands hiding his blindness.
"Like it or not," shouted Deci. "Tomorrow the Strangers come! You have yourchoice, all of you!" His arm circled the crowd. "Keep to your homes like Peguor come forward with your devi and find with me a power, a richness-"
"Or move the coveti again," said Dobi. "Away from betrayal and foolishgreed. We have a third choice."
Deci caught his breath.
"Veti?" his whisper pleaded. "Veti? We do not need the rest of the coveti.You and I together. We can wait for the Strangers. Together we can have theworld. With this weapon not one person in this coveti or any other canwithstand us. We can be the new people. We can have our own coveti, and takewhat we want-anything, anywhere. Come to me, Veti."
Veti looked long into his eyes. "Why did you come back?" she whispered withtears in her voice. Then anger leaped into her eyes. "Why did you come back!"There was the force of a scream in her harsh words. She darted suddenly to therocks. She s.n.a.t.c.hed the kiom from the dust where it had fallen. Before Devi knew what was happening, she whirled on him and pinned death upon his raggedjacket. Then with a swift, decisive twist, she tore away the pelu and droppedit to the dust.
Deci"s eyes widened in terror, his hand clutched at the kiom but dared nottouch it.
"No!" he screamed. "No!"
Then Veti"s eyes widened and her hands reached also for the kiom, but nopower she possessed could undo what she had done and her scream rose withDeci"s.
Then knowing himself surely dead and dead unbeloved, already entering theeternity of darkness of the unlighted kiom, Deci crumpled to the ground. Underhis cheek was the hardness of the weapon, under his outflung hand, the beautyof the fabric, and the sunlight, bending through the water, giggled crazily onhis chin.
One dead unbeloved is not as much as a crushed flower by the path. For theflower at least there is regret for its ended beauty.
So knowing Deci dead, the coveti turned from him. There was for memory ofhim only an uncertainty to Veti"s feet and a wondering shock in Veti"s eyes a.s.she turned with the others to prepare to move the coveti.
The wind came and poured over the dust and the things and Deci.
And Deci lay waiting for his own breath to stop.
Turn the Page
When I was in the first grade, my teacher was magic. Oh, I know! Everyonethinks that his first teacher is something special. It"s practically aconvention that all little boys fall in love with her and that all littlegirls imitate her and that both believe her the Alpha and Omega of wisdom-butmy teacher was really magic.
We all felt it the first day when finally the last anxious parent wa.s.shooed reluctantly out the door and we sat stiff and uneasy in our hard,unfriendly chairs and stared across our tightly clasped hands at Miss Ebo,feeling truly that we were on the edge of something strange and wonderful, butmore wonderful than strange. Tears dried on the face of our weeper as wewaited in that moment that trembled like a raindrop before it splinters intorainbows.
"Let"s be something!" Miss Ebo whispered. "Let"s be birds."
And we were! We were! Real birds! We fluttered and sang and flitted fromchair to chair all around the room. We prinked and preened and smoothed ourheads along the brightness of feathers and learned in those moments the fiercethrobbing restlessness of birds, the feathery hushing quietness of sleepingwings. And there was one of us that beat endlessly at the closed windows,scattering feathers, shaking the gla.s.s, straining for the open sky.
Then we were children again, wiggling with remembered delight, exchangingpleased smiles, feeling that maybe school wasn"t all fright and strangenessafter all. And with a precocious sort of knowledge, we wordlessly pledged ourmutual silence about our miracle.
This first day set the pace for us. We were, at different times, almostevery creature imaginable, learning of them and how they fitted into the worldand how they touched onto our segment of the world, until we saw fellowcreatures wherever we looked. But there was one of us who set himself againstthe lessons and ground his heel viciously down on the iridescence of a greenJune-bug that blundered into our room one afternoon. The rest of us looked atMiss Ebo, hoping in our horror for some sort of cosmic blast from her. Hereyes were big and knowing-and a little sad. We turned back to our work,tasting for the first time a little of the sorrow for those who stubbornlyshut their eyes against the sun and still curse the darkness.
And soon the stories started. Other children heard about Red Riding Hoodand the Wolf and maybe played the parts, but we took turns at being Red RidingHood and the Wolf. Individually we tasted the terror of the pursued-thesometimes delightfully delicious terror of the pursued-and we knew the bloodl.u.s.t and endless drive of the pursuer-the hot pulses leaping in our veins, theirresistible compulsion of hunger-never-satiated that pulled us along theshadowy forest trails.
And when we were Red Riding Hood, we knew under our terror and despair thathelp would come-had to come when we turned the page, because it was writtenthat way. If we were the Wolf, we knew that death waited at the end of ourhunger; we leaped as compulsively to that death as we did to our feeding. Asthe mother and grandmother, we knew the sorrow of letting our children go, andthe helpless waiting for them to find the dangers and die of them or livethrough them, but always, always, were we the pursuer or the pursued, thewaiter or the active one, we knew we had only to turn the page and finallylive happily ever after, because it was written that way! And we found outthat after you have once been the pursuer, the pursued and the watcher, youcan never again be only the pursuer or the pursued or the watcher. Ever afteryou are a little of each of them.
We learned and learned in our first grade, but sometimes we had to stop ourreal learning and learn what was expected of us. Those were the shallow days.
We knew the shallow days when they arrived because Miss Ebo met us at thedoor, brightly smiling, cheerily speaking, but with her lovely dark eyes quietand uncommunicative. We left the door ajar and set ourselves to routine tasks.We read and wrote and worked with our numbers, covering all we had slighted inthe magic days before-a model cla.s.s, learning neat little lessons, carefullycatching up with the other first grades. Sometimes we even had visitors tosmile at our industry, or the supervisor to come in and sharply twitch apicture to more exact line on the bulletin board, fold her lips in frustrationand make some short-tempered note in her little green book before she left us,turning her stiff white smile on briefly for our benefit. And, at day"s end,we sighed with weariness of soul and burst out of cla.s.s with all the unusedenthusiasm of the day, hoping that tomorrow would be magic again. And itusually was.
The door would swing shut with a pleased little chuckling cluck and wewould lift our questioning faces to Miss Ebo-or the Witch or the Princess orthe Fairy G.o.dmother-and plunge into another story as into a sparkling sea.
As Cinderella, we labored in the ashes of the fireplace and of lonelyisolation and of labor without love. We wept tears of hopeless longing as wewatched the semblance of joy and happiness leave us behind, weeping for iteven though we knew too well the ugliness straining under it -the sharp bonesof hatefulness jabbing at scarlet satin and misty tulle. Cinderella"s miraclecame to us and we made our loveliness from commonplace things and learned thathappiness often has a midnight chiming so that it won"t leak bleakly into awatery dawn, and finally, that no matter how fast we run, we leave a part ofus behind, and by that part of us, joy comes when we turn the page and we finally live happily ever after, because it is written that way.
With Chicken Little, we cowered under the falling of our sky. We believedimplicitly in our own little eye and our own little ear and the aching of ourown little tail where the sky had bruised us. Not content with panickingourselves with the small falling, we told the whole world repeatedly and atgreat length that the sky was falling for everyone because it fell for us. Andwhen the Fox promised help and hope and strength, we followed him and let ourbones be splintered in the noisome darkness of fear and ignorance.
And, as the Fox, we crunched with unholy glee the bones of little fools whoshut themselves in their own tiny prisons and followed fear into death ratherthan take a larger look at the sky. And we found them delicious and insidious.