Kalik (7 page)

“Never a queen.” Kalik said again. I felt Lutha’s silver bow on its cord. Its shape was like his mouth.

“Tell me.”

“You’ve had enough stories.”

I shook my head. Kalik’s words excited memories – like catching glimpses of a country I once knew. Clouds parting to reveal clouds, dreams of dreams.

I threw dry scrub on the embers. Smoke. Puff! The flame lit up Kalik’s face, and the canoe behind him. The lake black.

“All that talking,” Kalik said, “it’s made me hungry again.”

“I’ll cook more meat if you’ll tell me that story.” I raked coals, grilled steaks. We ate it with our fingers, bloody juice down our chins. Nip watched and chewed on her bone. I groaned, slumped against a log.

Kalik grunted. “I’m too full to talk.”

“You promised.”

Kalik drank water from a gourd. “Far to the west of the Western Mountains,” he said, “there was once a kingdom with soil so fertile it grew a heavy crop of wheat each year. Animals grew fat. Forests covered the hills. The people boasted their rivers flowed with milk and honey. Only one thing was wrong: their beautiful queen, Queen Amtris, feared getting old.

“She poisoned the king, her husband, and took younger and younger lovers. She dressed lavishly, rich gowns, rare jewellery. Her entertainments were costly.

“Queen Amtris taxed the people cruelly. They took so many crops off the land, the soil began to die. They planted more crops. Bred more animals. Felled the forests. The soil decayed further. Still the queen demanded more: she insulted the soil.

“The gods are not mocked. The sun went mad. It dried the rivers, burnt the grass and trees, made a desert of the
once-rich
soil.

“Beside the last spring, Queen Amtris built pleasure gardens and walled them with an armoured hedge of steel thorns. Through a gap she led her seven sons and seven daughters, her court, lovers, servants, guards. Behind them, the steel thorns clanged shut.

“Inside the pleasure gardens, scarlet flowers tumbled and hid the armoured hedge. All was feasting, music, dancing. Great cages held wild bears, beasts, and birds for their entertainment. Fish leapt in the stream.

“Outside, people died under the malignant sun. The last sound they heard was the queen’s laughter rippling like water.

“The last man left outside flung himself, arms wide-open, upon the steel thorns of the armoured hedge. Red flowers garlanded his head. The guards thrust with their spears too late. His curse rang across the pleasure gardens. ‘Queen Amtris, may you grow old, wither hideous, and die!’

“Queen Amtris looked in her mirrored walls, in her lovers’ eyes for any sign of ageing. She felt her face for lines. She spoke soft and low. She smiled instead of laughing. If she did not open her mouth wide, if she did not screw up her eyes and laugh, no wrinkles would form, she hoped.

“But wrinkles creviced the corners of her eyes, her upper lip. Weeping, Queen Amtris buried her first son alive, hoping the god of the underworld would mistake him for her. So she would live forever.

“At the beginning of each year she buried another of her sons alive.”

“And did she?”

“Did she what?”

“Live for ever?”

Kalik smiled. “The year after she buried her seventh son, she counted her wrinkles and found seven more. She swept
through her palace, half-strangled her oldest daughter – in her own long black hair. Skinned her while she was still half-alive. And drew that living skin, its long black hair, over her own head, over her own body. Hoping to live again through the death of youth. But inside her daughter’s skin, Queen Amtris grew still older.”

Something splashed. Too big for a fish. I listened, but there was only Nip cracking a bone beside me, and Kalik telling the story I already knew: Old Hagar’s story of the crone who strangled and skinned her own daughter.

“Disguising herself from Death, each year Queen Amtris killed another daughter until only her youngest remained. The queen counted her wrinkles and found seven more. Screaming, she half-strangled her last daughter. Skinned her alive. Inside that youthful skin, bald head hidden under her youngest daughter’s long black hair, Queen Amtris quickened and gave birth to all the birds and beasts and fishes of the world. The last creatures she bore were the children of our race.

“Then Death came like a lover. In his arms Queen Amtris lay. He held a lamp and watched the youthful skin crease in dusty cracks and folds. The long black hair fell out, left her ancient skull bare. And Death ate Queen Amtris.

“The trees around her pleasure gardens burned. The bears bent apart the iron bars of their cages, tore a gap in the armoured hedge. The other animals and birds followed. They found a river that died on the edge of the desert, followed it into the mountains where it grew bigger towards its source. They climbed and flew through the mountains to the land of the lake. Bear. Deer. Goat. Sheep. Dog. Boar. Donkey. Bull.”

“Bull?” I asked.

“Where do you think we got the horns from, for the sentries? Somewhere to the south in the hills.” Kalik nodded and went on.

“Last of all, the children escaped. The desert invaded the pleasure gardens. Trees, flowers, and spring choked in sand.

“Into the mountains the children followed the bears’ tracks,
up the river that died. Where snow hid the track, bears waited to show the way. After the last children passed, they froze into pillars of rock and ice.

“The children chose the first King of the Mountain, became the first People of the Lake. They hunted and caught the animals, the fish, and birds. Lutha’s people and mine are descended from those children.”

Kalik looked down the invisible lake to Grave Mountain hidden in darkness.

“What about the king?”

“I told you in the other story: when he knew he was dying, the old king chose a boy to learn his wisdom, showed him the secret way under the mountain. When the boy had learned all there was to know, he came out of the mountain, a young man, and paid for his wisdom. The old king blinded the young man.”

“Yes!”

Kalik smiled. “The young man then killed the old king and ruled until he became old and trained another boy in wisdom. Blind king succeeded blind king.

“Then a goddess came out of the Western Mountains,” said Kalik, “and overthrew the last of the blind kings. When she grew old, she waded into the lake and turned to stone. So she stands on the earth, in the water, and in the air. And ever since that time, women have ruled.”

The fire burned down. The splash again. Somewhere upon the dark shrug of the lake I saw a mound of black water vanish like a half-formed thought. As if some savage spirit had listened to Kalik’s story, and sneered at what it heard.

Kalik drew up his deerskin blanket. “That’s the story my old people tell. But it ends with a prediction. Before the goddess turned to stone, as she stood in the lake, she prophesied that a Stranger would come some day. A Stranger who would overthrow the rule of women, her own worship.”

I drew up my deerkskin. I had told nothing of the Library to Lutha and Kalik. Nothing of the blinding of the Shaman,
the getting of wisdom. Nothing of Sodomah and the Garden of Dene. As I thought that, Kalik chuckled again.

“You came over the Western Mountains, Ish. You saw the frozen bears in the pass. You came to the lake and disappeared under the mountain. You brought back Lutha’s father. And he was called the Shaman, our word for a wise man.

“You returned with the blind king. You were there when the Salt Men shot him and he died. But you have both your eyes. Did the blind king fail to blind you before he died himself?” Kalik laughed. The air was suddenly cold.

“What was the Goddess’s name?” I asked even though I knew what it must be.

Kalik laughed again. “The daughter of the Goddess of Fire,” he said. “Goddess of the Moon, and Childbirth. Goddess of the Hunt. The Virgin Goddess. She has many names. One of them is Hekkat.

“Perhaps the gods have sent you to end her rule, Ish. Like quenching a bit of burning tote. Have you thought you could be King of Grave Mountain?”

I listened to his chuckle, knowing that all I ever wanted was a family. And a place of my own.

A little wave ran a hollow splash from end to end of the beach. A reek of something dead dragged across the air.

“It’s a good story, but I’m not the Stranger! I don’t want to be king.” I turned on my side, pretended to sleep. Kalik, I knew, was watching me through the dark. I could feel his mind trying to work its way inside my head.

I woke during the night. Had I been asleep, or had I lain awake listening to Kalik telling another story? Uncertain, I rolled over. He was sitting by the dead fire.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I thought I was. But I woke and thought you were telling another story. Did you tell another story, Kalik? While I was asleep.”

“You woke me. Talking in your sleep. Calling out somebody’s
name. Who’s the Showman, Ish?”

“The Showman? I don’t know any Showman.”

“Maybe you said the Shaman. Maybe that’s who you meant.”

“It must be all that meat we ate. I don’t remember any dream.”

Kalik lay himself down. “Did I say anything else?” I asked.

“Something about a donkey and a carnival or something. That’s what it sounded like.” Kalik’s voice was drowsy.

“It’s funny what you dream.”

“I suppose so.” His voice slipped away.

“Do you ever talk in your sleep?” I asked, but there was no reply. What else had I said in my sleep? What had I dreamt about? Kalik mentioned the Showman, the donkey, the Carny. Had he questioned me as I slept? Had I answered him? And what had I said?

Sluggish, mind filled with images from Kalik’s stories, from dreams, I heaved myself into the canoe and dragged aboard swollen-bellied Nip by her scruff. Sun burned through mist. A charred piece of tote bobbed past.

Kalik’s black curls were wet with dew. He had no idea of right or wrong. Just what succeeded. He watched Lutha’s worship of Hekkat with a cynical eye, supported her only because it was to his advantage.

I liked him. Liked was not strong enough a word – I was attracted by Kalik. But was he friend or enemy? I held two images in my mind: the iceberg’s underwater hulk, and the unmasked Showman, the Carny.

The sun warmed my shoulders. Kalik’s curls dried. I paddled drowsy. What did last night’s stories mean? Was the Stranger a warning? I knew Kalik would kill anyone who stood in his way, as Queen Amtris killed her own children. Lutha and the worship of Hekkat stood in Kalik’s way to power, if power was what he wanted.

We had fought side by side, saved each other’s lives. But his dog – who sooled it on to Nip? The unnecessary slaughter of the Salt People up the valley. The cannibal orgy. Kalik kicking the Salt Child that first night. Like Lutha striking the girl – Maka – who held the baby. To understand Kalik, I must understand his callousness. His sudden swings from cruelty to merriment.

“Most problems are simple, Ish. Think that, and you will solve them. Think they’re difficult, and they will be.” I remembered the Shaman’s words.

All right. Kalik wants to rule the Headland People. That’s why he told the story of Promise and the tote tree last night,
and the stories of the King, the Queen, and the Stranger. Trying me out, wanting to know if I will support him against Lutha.

He liked but could not trust me because Lutha had given me her protection. And Lutha protected me because I brought her father home to die, too simple an idea for Kalik’s tortuous mind. Because he was complex, he looked for complexity where there was none.

I laughed aloud. Nip whined and nudged my back with her nose.

“What’s funny?” asked Kalik.

“Everything. It’s all so simple!”

Kalik’s paddle dipped, came out running water then dripping. “I can’t think this morning,” he said.

“We ate too much.”

“Good though!” He chuckled.

Some huge black birds took off, circled the lake. Even though I could no longer see the birds themselves, a white flash echoed their flight.

“White feathers under their wings,” said Kalik. “Black swans. There’s another lake, Lake Weah.” He pointed north. “And I’ve seen them fly south.” The white flash faltered.

“That outcrop,” I said. We were running beneath a grassy hillside. “That’s where I stole Nip on our way down the lake.”

“You were seen. Somebody stole another pup from the same litter. The dog you killed, your first night on the Headland. Nip’s brother.”

I remembered its heavy head. It had been red, like their mother, the red bitch I’d seen going to and from the outcrop.

“So we almost met each other!”

“You disappeared on your raft, or my people would have killed you. Dogs are precious to us.” Kalik’s gay laugh fell across the water with the drops from our paddles. “You were lucky, Ish. So you’re here.” And I had to join him in his laughing.

We came in sight of a hillside stripped of its trees, the timber workings. A rumble. “Watch this!”

A log hurtled down a narrow gully, skidding over short logs half-buried. Faster and faster. Its nose caught beneath one of the skids, as Kalik called them. Tossed it high. Despite its size, the big log spun end for end, whacking down scrub, tossing up boulders, gouging soil. It leapt, toppled, slewed across the beach. Rolled, bumped, and rocked still. A moment before it had been a wild beast.

I let out my breath. Kalik smiled. His eyes had been on my face. Did he know I had been comparing him with the log?

“Marvellous!” His voice reminded me of the night we waited for the Salt Men. His words then:
“Stay with me. You’ll see some action!”

Guards stood over slaves levering another log on to the skids. The slaves were stained by sap, grimed with mud. Some were tattooed. Once again, I wondered what it was that made a Salt Man different. Clean and in tunics, they would have looked just like Kalik’s men.

They all had one lame leg, the tendon cut so they could hop and shuffle enough to work, but never escape. Helpless against a man with two strong legs, against the two fierce dogs which, I knew, were trained to run down escaped slaves.

“This will happen to the Salt Children. They will be lamed and brought here.” I suppressed the image in my mind, watched two men chopping a deep scarf in the direction they wanted a tree to fall. Wedge-shaped chips flew. The V of the scarf gaped. Pleasant, the fresh scent of wood. The two men hopped behind the tree, began a back cut. The nearer one slipped. His axe flew as he fell. Kalik jerked me aside. The axe lopped off a sapling.

The Salt Man looked at me from eyes like scars burnt into his dark face. “Get your axe,” Kalik said to him. That was all. Another glance from those awful eyes.

I tried to thank Kalik. “It could have been an accident.”

“Perhaps.”

The axes drove hard. Faster. A crack. Wood tearing apart.
The tree fell. The slaves hopped and clambered, chopped the trunk through below its first branches. With heavy poles, others began to lever and swing the butt. The axemen were already scarfing another tree. The others strained, rolled the log on to the skids, and it shot down.

“Any trouble?” Kalik asked the guards.

I knew several of them. Pleasant, decent men. But here they were supervising the work of men they had lamed. Whom they would run down with dogs, if necessary. Kill with not a second thought. As I came down the Western Coast with Taur, I had asked, “What makes a slave?” Now it seemed more important to understand the people who make slaves.

“Where do you get your metal tools?”

“South-east,” Kalik said, “the Cold Hills are nearly always covered with snow. The Iron People live below them and dig for a black stone that burns hot. They heat iron in its flames, beat it into tools and weapons.

“Twice a year we send a party to trade for their tools and weapons. We never go further than the Trading Place. The Iron People never come this side of it. So we have no reason to fight.” He grinned.

I thought of Tara’s Metal People at the Hot Pools in the North Land. And the Coal People in the Land of the White Bear. Why do some people fight each other; why are some able to live in peace?

Kalik hurried the slaves. He struck one with his
spear-handle
. Another with a branch he snatched up. One of the men bled where Kalik hit him across his face. And though the blood ran free, the slave did not dare wipe it away, but worked on. I had to remind myself, if I was to help the Salt Children, I must keep my feelings hidden. So when Kalik struck another man a fearful blow and glanced, my face showed no emotion. Kalik struck the wretched slave again.

All afternoon, logs shot down to where more slaves lashed them into a raft. Even at that distance it was easy to tell the Salt
Men by their curious hobble. Ugly, misshapen, dirty. Perhaps that made it easier to be cruel to them.

Salt Men killed Tara. Taur died saving me from them. They killed the Shaman. And here I was feeling sorry for them! I shrugged.

Late in the afternoon, the slaves worked even faster under the blows of the guards. Logs went grinding and shrieking over the skids, leaping, smashing.

Two more lay ready for sending down. “That’s enough for today,” Kalik said. “We’ll have a look at this tote.”

Its shaggy head of sharp-tipped leaves reared over the hill as we climbed, its trunk straight and clean all the way to the first branch. Long strips of bark hanging. Furrowed. Grey outside, reddish underneath. I had seen bigger totes, but they were old, past their best. Their trunks great stubs but usually with some fault, an unsoundness where a branch had fallen a hundred years ago, where rain had worked in.

Kalik went forward, chanting. He waved leaves, fastened them to the trunk. Laid another bunch at the base of the tree. And a chunk of cooked meat.

Kalik’s chanting continued as he circled the tree. Its trunk was as thick through as the height of a tall man. The roots spread wide. Kalik’s voice rose and fell as he turned to and away from us. The guards muttered responses. I could not understand their words either. It was like a forgotten language.

I wondered at Kalik’s performing a ritual. He often seemed to have no conviction about anything. Was he acting a part?

“The right prayers have to be made,” he said when he finished. “People need to be reassured everything is done the right way.”

Next morning, everyone bathed in the lake. Nobody ate. Most of the guards and slaves were left working on the rafts, while Kalik, the same guards, the two Salt Men with axes, and I climbed to the tote.

The leaves and the chunk of meat were gone. The guards nodded, pleased. Kalik indicated the cut, and the slaves swung
their axes. Chips of red wood heaped below. Mid-morning, the slaves were replaced by two others. The first two gathered the chips in flax baskets.

By afternoon, the scarf was finished, the back cut well in. Kalik circled, repeated his ritual, and the chopping continued. The great tree cried out like a man and fell towards evening. The slaves gathered every last chip, carried them down in baskets. After dark, we ate for the first time that day.

The same bath, and no food again next morning. By midday, the tree’s head had been cut off. Everyone, slaves, guards, Kalik, and I levered with poles, working the trunk to where it would take its plunge.

Kalik sent some slaves to skid down the two lesser logs left below. One of them was the man with eyes like scars burned into his face. Their first log shot off and plunged out of sight, reappearing on the beach. The second jammed halfway down the gully. Kalik shouted. The two slaves hung off their poles, using their weight to shift the log back on to the skids. And beside me, Kalik levered, gave the huge tote log the smallest movement. It hung, shifted, and whispered downhill.

The Salt Men looked up. For a moment I saw the man’s face, the one who had almost struck me with his axe. Then they were both diving aside. Their log had just begun to move. The tote struck its butt a clear smack! The smaller log sprang like a spear. The huge tote swung across the gully, tearing bark in a strip which shot vertical. A scream! The skidding tote rolled over the two Salt Men and was gone. Bucking, thundering, exulting down the last slope, it shot across the beach, threw up water its whole length, and rocked still in the bay.

The guards cheered. The remaining Salt Men picked up the axes where they had been dropped, walked on down, not looking at the smeared hillside.

By dark, three rafts were moored. The tote trunk was fastened to a post dug upright into the beach, what Kalik called a
dead-man
.

It rained as we ate. Comfortable in the guards’ hut, I wondered how the Salt Men slept in their rough shelters. Next morning the three rafts set off, poled by the slaves. The tote log towed behind. Guards’ canoes circling lazy.

It was as we paddled back to the headland that I asked Kalik something about the dance-worship of Hekkat.

“Who told you about it?”

“Raka.”

“No wonder she died.”

“Dead! Why?”

“The Maidens are sworn to secrecy.”

“But everyone knows Lutha is Hekkat’s priestess.”

“Yes,” Kalik smiled. “But the worship: the dances, the prayers, the songs, it’s death to talk about them.

“Raka was Lutha’s favourite. She fell from grace. It happens. Usually the girl is expelled from the Maidens, and Lutha takes another lover. But Raka disappeared. Lutha might have done it because she knew Raka had been talking to you.”

“Nobody saw us!”

Kalik turned, paddled dripping on the silent lake. “There is always somebody watching, Ish. Listening.” He smiled at my face.

“How did she die?”

“Bound and left on the Island of Bones. For the next flood.”

Was it my fault? Had Lutha killed Raka for sleeping with me? Or was it something she had done earlier, even before she put her spear to my throat? Was Raka a sacrifice, like the two men who died on the skids?