Gods of Green Mountain (6 page)

Finally, the weather became so unendurable, all but Baka moved underground. He and his family alone were left above to suffer whatever the Gods chose to give him. Those below waited, beginning to feel that Baka and his entire family was indeed
just
the sacrifice that would appease the Gods who lived on Green Mountain.

That year Far-Awn was twelve. Of necessity he once again led his flock of puhlets far, far from home. The storm-devastated land was stripped almost bare of life. His flock was greatly reduced in numbers, so many of the pukas had died from the extreme weather changes, despite all that human help and care could provide. The fields couldn't produce grain, the trees weren't allowed to blossom into fruit with so many winds to tear the limbs from the trunks. Now puhlet meat became the staple diet, and soon they too would be gone--if things continued on as they were.

The twisted, gnarled black burran trees grew more profusely (if anything could be said to grow
profusely
) than any other type of tree on the borderlands. These strong valiant trees were as bare of fringes as any other. Far-Awn felt a deeper sinking of his heart on seeing this. If the burran trees could lose their long, thin crimson fringes, then what other tree could hope to hold its own? Never before had he seen these trees so exposed, without one single rippling fringe to disguise the ugliness of their knobby limbs.

The hide-covered farm homes he passed were leveled to the ground. The once-cultivated fields were now as hard and dry as the crusty, wild and arid countryside. Not one spot of growing green could he see when he looked out over the meadows, plains, and hills. Only in the sheltered places between the high boulders and smaller rocks, and in some of the low ravines, could he find wild grasses for the puhlets to eat, and very meager grazing it was.

Sadly, Far-Awn watched his beloved flock crowd and shove against the rocks, seeking more, as if they could move what even the windstorms couldn't budge. In the underground bins at home, most of the grain was gone. What now would the puhlets eat? What now would any of them eat, except the very animals that were his charges?

But somewhere, someplace there
had
to be food for the puhlets, for all of them. So on and on Far-Awn led his flock. A little was found growing between this rock and that. His puhlets even ate some of the dark, bitter greens which grew under the red rocks. The same grasses which in better times had caused them to turn aside their plush-purple noses in disdain.

The flock consisted of only twenty, including the six that had glowed luminously bluish at birth. Their inner glow had faded shortly afterward, but it seemed to Far-Awn that these six were different in many small ways from the others. He was certain it was more than just imagination that these six were quicker, stronger, more intelligent. What food that was found now was found by them.

As the puhlets grazed on the dark bitter green they disliked, rilling from time to time in discontent, Far-Awn slowly nibbled on the food his mother had packed for him in a small bag. He ate the little sparingly, knowing this was the only food he could be assured of for a long, long time. For he wasn't going home, not tonight, or tomorrow night.

He was running away, taking with him the last remaining flock of puhlets left alive on El Sod-a-Por!

The Setting of the
Second Sun

T
he day before his decision to leave, Far-Awn overheard his father explain to his mother the reasons that the puhlets would all have to be killed, all but one male, and two females to perpetuate the line for the future: "People are starving. There is no grain to feed the puhlets. The land doesn't yield wild grasses anymore. The meat is needed. Soon the puhlets would be too thin to be of any use."

"But Baka," his mother had asked, "how can seventeen puhlets feed the hundreds that are starving? After they are eaten, they will demand the last three as well--and what will we do when all puhlets are gone?"

For that monumental question, Baka had no answer, except to say, "The flock is starving anyway. Better kill them while there is still some flesh on their bones. Lee-La, are we to stand by and let our neighbors die, while we have meat?"

Horribly distressed, and quite disbelieving, Far-Awn had peeked from his hidden place to see from his father's expression if he really meant to do such a dreadful deed. His father's sagging shoulders, his deep revealing sigh, told him that Baka was honestly speaking, and it was not just anxiety speculating.

Yes, what
would
they do when every puhlet was dead and eaten? To kill all but three of his flock was no solution. He knew his flock, their ways. Keep Musha alive with two females only, with no other males to stimulate his physical needs through rivalry, and there would be no pukas conceived! Musha would grow sick from despondency with two females only, when he was accustomed to having so many! Far-Awn steeled his will against his father, his family, against all the people who had given up and gone to live underground. "Let them eat tortars! They shall not eat one more of my flock!" he flared aloud, so that Musha lifted his great head and stared at him questioningly. Far-Awn reasoned that his family could live on tortars too, since everyone else was. No sensible reason why his flock should dissipate to zero just because they all had a craving for puhlet meat that tortars couldn't satisfy. As for himself, he never ate puhlet meat. He lived on the cheeses made from their milk, and he used to eat bread made from grain that didn't grow anymore, fruit that trees couldn't yield now, and berries the bushes no longer grew.

On the whole of the upper borderlands, only Far-Awn's flock survived. Of those who lived on the lower borderlands, it had been years and years since one had come through the maze of underground passages to give news of the disasters in that distant, remote place Far-Awn never expected to see. But from what he had heard from the elders, it was not a better place. It was much the same as what was here.

Little did his mother suspect, when she prepared his food bag, that he planned not to return in the evening. She kissed his cheek and told him to be careful, as she always did. "Far-Awn, your father loves you. Never doubt that. Though he calls you idiot and stupid, he doesn't mean it. He is proud that you are the only shepherd to keep his flock alive, but he can't bring himself to say so."

In the pocket of his coat, Far-Awn held the hope of a solution: the star-shaped opalescent flower that grew in the nightworld of Bay Gar. He would take his flock there, and let them eat of the luminous flowers again. Though it was dangerous, and he might well die in the attempt, for already he was weaker than he had been since his birth. But the puhlets traveled so slowly, wandering off, seeking food. They would never reach even the twilight zone near Bay Gar before the setting of the second sun.

Now, as he saw the first sun slide behind the Scarlet Mountains, he wondered, as he wondered every day, just what lay beyond those distant rock mountains. The Green Mountain, of course, but what else? A better place than here? Somewhere there had to be a better place. It would
have
to be a better, more productive place if the Gods lived there. They would select for themselves the best; it stood to reason this would be so.

Pulling himself from abstract thoughts, Far-Awn sounded a trilling call to pull his flock back together, for the second sun would soon follow the first. With its disappearance would come darkness, and the instant sleep. Slowly the roving puhlets gathered about him, obedient as always.

It would take time to find a sheltered place between the huge overhanging boulders. A place where the storms couldn't deluge them with rain, or the winds couldn't sweep them away in the darkness. But most important, it had to be a safe place where the prowling warfars wouldn't find them, for they had to be as hungry and desperate for food as the puhlets.

Finally, after long searching, he came upon a high place with a rock shelf protecting a large cave underneath. To reach there the puhlets wouldn't leave a trail of scent for the warfars to follow, for it was rock all the way. To be so lucky, to find such a perfect place to spend the night gave him joy enough to spill a song from his lips. Singing, he led the way to the cave and ordered Musha to keep the herd there, while he set off again to find water. He crawled on the ground, feeling with his left palm, his most sensitive one. He felt all the likely places, and from time to time put his nose to the ground and sniffed. Finally his knowing and sensitive hand rested on a cool, damp spot. He quickly leaned to sniff. Yes! It smelled earthy and strong as it should. Water was underneath--and not too far from the cave. But it was too late to start digging. He would have to do that tomorrow. Already the second sun was low, glorifying the heavens with crimson and streaks of vermilion, coloring the clouds violet and orange with outlinings of gold.

Lying down in the cave with his puhlets, Far-Awn watched the sensational ending of the day. Strange, he was the only one who looked upward to enjoy the sunsets. No one else noticed. But of course, he was strange to think colors were beautiful, for they couldn't be eaten, or worn, or burned to make warmth. Soon he would be expected to choose a wife and start a family. Already four of his brothers were married. All of life on El Sod-a-Por was rushed quickly into maturity. No time to dawdle in the foolishness of adolescence. Grow up, take on responsibilities, breed as many children as possible, for half were sure to die--if you were lucky to keep even 50 percent alive.

There was a girl named Santan who lived on the neighboring farm. She was being courted by the brother next to his age. Ah, but she was pretty. But not once had she flashed her purple eyes at him, or pouted her lips prettily, the way girls did to let you know they were interested. Far-Awn doubted that any girl would accept
his
proposal--he was too well gossiped about as having the sun-madness. He would no doubt die a bachelor, the most despised of all humans, for they contributed nothing and only took from those who reproduced. Far-Awn sighed, then fixed his eyes on the single Green Mountain, higher than all the surrounding Scarlet ones. He prayed to the Gods reputed to live there, for food for the puhlets, for days without storms, for relief from anxieties...and perpetual hunger, and a future that seemed only bleak from this particular point in time. "And perhaps, all-powerful ones...a little something extra, such as helping Santan look at me with some warmth, and not as something too odd for her eyes to behold."

Darkness fell like a mantle. Swiftly with night came the onslaught of sudden deep cold. Instantly Far-Awn plunged into the abyss of sleep. Snug against the warm puhlets, he was covered completely by their silky hair. He was protected. He fell into the deep sleep El Sod-a-Porians called the "little death."

Because they were descended from plant life, El Sod-a-Porians couldn't awaken until the sun rose and its rays shone upon them. Even weak and murky sunlight helped unfold them from the arms of the small death that took them every night.

While Far-Awn slept in the cave with the puhlets, far from home, those sleeping in the cold and dank underground burrows needed light from the sun as much as he did. They had to keep a shaft to the surface to let in the morning light. Even so, they withered and died when they stayed too long in the inner-earth dimness. A long-dormant remembrance of their plant-life past would steal into their minds and weaken their ability to walk. Eventually it weakened their will to move. If they stayed underground long enough, they would instinctually burrow their toes into the soft muck until their feet and ankles were buried. Then their arms would slowly fold over their chests, and their eyes would close as they grew rigid in ennui, waiting without ambition, without desire, without hope.

It was one terrible shock to find a beloved one in this dreaded state of dormancy. The rooted one would have to be rushed up into the sunlight quickly, before they withered more and turned brown and died. Occasionally the sun could cure them, bring them back, but most of the time the rooted ones would stay too long in the dim underworld, and even the brightest of suns couldn't gift them with moving limbs again. Then there was nothing to do but stand and watch the loved one's citron flesh slowly turn bronzy yellow, and from this into dry, corky brown, the color of death and decay.

This was why Baka insisted on keeping his family on the sunlit surface, preferring to risk the known dangers of nature's wrath than to endanger his family's health by exposing them to the insidious despairs that could creep up without warning. But when he lost his eldest son and his wife and new baby, all swept away in a rushing torrent of water, along with their home just newly constructed, his head bowed down in grief and doubt. He saw Lee-La looking at him stark-eyed, a silent question written on her sad face.

"We have lost our eldest, and our youngest," she said in a small voice. "Didn't I tell you Far-Awn would guess what you intended to do? He can't live out there...he and the puhlets will all die."