Olivia (68 page)

With obvious reluctance, Kodjunn turned away from the paintings and the role of storyteller, and helped Olivia deeper into the spiraling cave.

Olivia ran her eyes along the walls as she walked.  She couldn’t translate much was what she was seeing, but she could guess at partial meanings.  Here were pictures of different game animals (including, she saw with amusement, a herd of woolly mammoths) and methods of hunting them.  As the spiral tightened, they came to a map of the mountain, one that showed where the water collected and how it flowed through the different caves, where the waste water deposited, and where any openings were.  She wanted to stop, but Sudjummar coaxed her onward, saying, “After the mountain is marked, the stories of the tribe are told.  Here, Olivia!” 

And there, apparently.  He and Kodjunn leaned in close to the wall, examining the paintings in silence.

Olivia wandered up ahead, shining her flashlight down the walls until there were no more images, only lengths of blank, smooth rock which terminated after thirty or fifty feet into a rounded point.  “Do you see anything interesting?” she called absently.

“A bad fire here,” Kodjunn replied.  “They lost the game and all the plants and had to get creative about what they were eating.  This could be good to know.”

“And there are humans around here somewhere,” Sudjummar added.  “Because one of their leaders made a point of forbidding his hunters to take their cattle or, oh this is interesting, or their women.”  He lit the next lantern and walked on, giving the walls cursory glances as he went, and stopped just before the paints did.  “
Sigruum
!” he called.  “Here we have it!”

Kodjunn and Olivia joined him and studied the walls.  Kodjunn’s brows rose slightly as he read what was shown. 

“So,” Sudjummar said finally.  “At least it wasn’t disease.”

“What happened?” Olivia asked, looking in frustration from one to the other of them.  All she saw were shapes, worn by time to mere abstractions. 

“It seems,” Sudjummar explained when Kodjunn remained quiet, “that one of the hunters chose to defy the old law about not killing human cattle.”

“Oh?”

“Or taking human women.”

Olivia blinked.  “Oh.”

“When he was discovered, he challenged his
tovorak
for leadership of the tribe and won.  Soon, there were many humans mates among them.  And many young born to them.”  He glanced at her, troubled.  “And they were well…at first.”

A faint chill touched her.  She told herself it was the air.  “But?”

“Some…illness took them,” Kodjunn said.  On the section of wall before him, a wingless woman raised her hands—and the death-grey lump between them—to the featureless sky.  Her mouth yawned open much wider than any human mouth could, reminding her unpleasantly of Mojo Woman, there at the end.  The flickering lamplight made her seem to sway and jabber, but the grey thing in her hands remained motionless.  Kodjunn started to touch the wall, covering the flaking image, then lowered his arm again.  “The children died.”

“All of them?”  That chill grew stronger, creeping along her spine like claws, but she managed to suppress the shiver they wanted to tickle out of her.  “But what could—Were they poisoned?”

“Who would poison a child?” Kodjunn asked, recoiling.

“Someone who did not want to see humans bearing them, I suppose,” Sudjummar answered, but he was frowning.  “In any event, the tribe decided it was a curse and that their new leader had brought it upon them.  They cut his wings and threw him from the highest peak, but the children kept dying.  They…You really don’t need to hear this, Olivia,” he finished, and caught a firm hold on her arm.

She dug in her heels and peered at the wall.  “Is that a pit full of bodies?”

He and Kodjunn exchanged glances.  “Yes.”

“Human bodies?”

Sudjummar bent his head, then looked at her.  “Desperate people do terrible things.”

“What happened to the rest of the tribe?” she asked.

“Would you live in the place where so many angry spirits walked?”

“You lived over the depths back in Hollow Mountain,” she pointed out.

“That doom came about because of our compassion,” Sudjummar countered.  “This one, from their cruelty.  In any event, they left.  And the Great Spirit would not lead us to a haunted place to build a new home.  Even if there are spirits—”  His gaze dropped to rest upon her rounded belly.  “—surely they will be freed when they see the good that has come of our joining.”

Olivia’s eyes had a way of straying back to that painted pit, filled with human figures drawn in death-grey hues.  “Surely.”

“Come out of here, Olivia.”  Sudjummar took her arm again, and this time, she let him.  “The
sigruum
will have much work to do restoring the archives before your story can be told.”

“Mine?”  She looked back at Kodjunn, startled, but he was lost in the wall once more.

“You are a part of our history now,” Sudjummar told her, leading her back out of the spiraling
sigru
.  “And when your Somurg is born and all who gather here see him strong and whole, you will be a greater part still.”

“I’m not certain I want to be great.”

He shrugged.  “That’s why they call it notoriety—”

“And not popularity,” they finished together.

He let go of her arm and put it around her shoulder instead, laughing.

She let him do that, too.

3

That night, as Olivia heaved herself up the chimney into her new lair, she found herself thinking over the idea of herself immortalized in gullan legend.  The idea was a little discomfiting, but not as disturbing as she supposed it should be if she were truly a modest woman.  She wondered how she would be drawn, and in what color.  As near as she could tell from the archives, black was used to indicate ordinary people and things; red was for importance, such as leaders and spirits; while death came in shades of grey.

“Perhaps a nice yellow,” she said to herself.

“What was that?”  Vorgullum looked up from the fire.

“Kodjunn and Sudjummar took me to the archives.”

His brows rose.  “They did?”

A curious reaction.  She hesitated in the act of loosening her robe’s ties.  “Wasn’t that all right?”

He had to think about it.  “I have no objection,” he said at last, slowly.  “You are my Olivia and you may go where you will in my mountain.  But I’ve never heard of a woman in the
sigru
.”

“Oh.”  Uncomfortable now, she fussed with her robe.

“What happened here, did you see?”

She told him briefly and without speculating on exactly what had happened to the human-born children.  He absorbed it all and at last nodded.

“Of course, we have no way of knowing what happened to them after that,” she finished.

“They flew south,” he replied without hesitation.  “And joined with those in Frozen Mountain, from which tribe our own divided in the long ago days.  And so we have earned the doom that came upon us.”  He sat and brooded over the fire, then surprised her with a short laugh.  “That is oddly comforting.”

“What makes you think—”

He shrugged, first with his wings, then with his shoulders.  “I heard the other half of that tale from the old leader, as no doubt he heard it from the leader before him.  I’m a little surprised Kodjunn said nothing, but knowing him as I do, I suspect he was only half in his own head, if it was the first time he had seen the
sigruu
.  He’ll dream it tonight, most likely.”  He glanced around at her and his head tipped.  “You look tired.”

“Not tired, only pregnant,” she assured him, and peeled off her robe, noting as she did so that in another month or so, she would have to find one in a larger size.  And not just around the middle, where Somurg slept, but around her swelling breasts as well.  Belly, breasts, ankles…God!  Everything was growing but her bladder.  Heaving a long-suffering sigh, she lowered herself into the pit and just lay there for a while.  Baby Somurg flipped himself over inside her and began to gear himself up for a long night of keeping Mom awake.

“See how healthy he is,” Vorgullum remarked, smiling with pride. He came into the pit and placed a hand over her belly, testing Somurg’s punches.  “He is so…alive!  How much longer before I can hold him?”

“Soon enough,” she replied, watching him with a smile.  “Just think, by this time next year, there will seven babies crying up the caves.”

“What a pleasant thought,” he said, and spooned up against her, leaving his hand where it could be punched at.  “Our Somurg will scream the loudest.”

“Of all the things to pick to be proud of,” she groaned, and he nipped at her shoulder.

“Amy will birth just behind you,” he continued.  “Sarabee after her.  Liz, Anita, and Ellen after that.  Cheyenne last of all.  That leaves Wurlgunn’s Beth, Doru’s Tobi, Gullnar’s Tina and who else?”

“Carla,” Olivia offered.  “And Karen and Sarah J.”

“Mmm.  Seven babies, even without them.  Seven in a single year.  Never in all my memory has there been so much new life among us.”  He nuzzled her neck, but it seemed a mechanical gesture.  When she rolled towards him she saw him staring meditatively towards the hearth.  “Seven,” he mused. 

“And you could be happy with only six if you had to.”

He jerked his hand off her as if she’d caught fire, but his expression was not one of shock, but of shame.

She sat up, nodding.  “Tell me you didn’t drag Cheyenne all the way here just to decide to fling her off a new aerie.”

His chin lifted.  That old, familiar glint came coldly into his eye.  “I don’t trust her.”

“That’s not a good enough reason to kill someone.”

“I envy you at times, that you have such luxury to think so.”

“Vorgullum, please…”  God, she could not believe she was saying this.  “Think of healthy young.”

He nodded, gingerly eased his arm around her again.  “For the child, I can wait.  But you must have some chat with that beast.  Tell her there is a number on the moon-spans of life she has remaining if she does not earn my trust, and that number is seven.”  Then he set his jaw and said nothing more.

4

Olivia was with Murgull when she died, three weeks later.  Murgull had been complaining of aches for some time, but no worse, really, than she ever did. And then, one morning she simply never got out of bed.  Olivia waited in the women’s commons for her lessons until mid-day, then went to find her.

Murgull lay curled in her pit, breathing in hard, shallow pants.

“Murgull?” Olivia said, somewhat shrilly, and rushed to her.

“Oh,” Murgull grunted.  “You.  Look how big you are, like a boulder!”  She started to reach for her, then gasped and fell back.  “Too soon, always too soon.  You go on alone…little sister.”

“No!”  Olivia raced back to the mouth of the tunnel, shouting for help, for Horumn, for Tina, for anyone. 

“Remember…your promise,” Murgull panted.  One hand rose, groped clumsily at her chest, and fell again.  “And if…If the child you bear is whole…you must show me…your little frog…your little Somurg.  You must hold him high…where I am sleeping.”

“Don’t talk like that!”  Olivia ran back past Murgull’s pit to fumble at potions and herbs. “What can I get?  Murgull, what can I get for you?”

“A grave,” Murgull groaned, and died.

Olivia shook her, called her, and finally slapped her.  Murgull’s last breath escaped in a ghastly rattling sigh, and then her rigid limbs slowly unlocked.  The air seemed to chill, as though in the passage of a soul.

Olivia clutched her arm, her own blunt fingernails sunk in the thinning hair.  Her lip quivered.  “Murgull?” she said hesitantly.

There are things I need to do
, a cold part of her thought.

But she couldn’t leave.  It was tradition.  Someone had to stay with the dead, and make it ready for burial.

Olivia rose woodenly, stumbled to the entry room, and called down the hall from the doorway.  Murgull’s lair had been very close to the women’s commons.  It wasn’t long before someone answered nervously, just outside.

“Murgull is dead,” Olivia said.  “Murgull is dead, and I don’t know what to do.”

The sound of running feet was her only reply.  She sank down onto a bench to wait.  Minutes alone with the dead were hours, and finally Horumn came.  The old gulla did not look at Olivia, only went to Murgull and gazed at her.

“So,” Horumn said softly.  “So.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Olivia repeated, hearing the helpless voice of a lost child.

“You go, Olivia,” Horumn said.  “I will do what needs doing.  Tordurk is finding a grave for her.”

“I don’t want to leave her,” Olivia said, and then the tears came.  She stumbled towards the entry chute, but Horumn caught her arm and embraced her awkwardly around the great swell of her belly.

“Hush, human,” Horumn murmured.  “Old Murgull did not want to leave you, either.  Wanted to see your little frog born.  The Great Spirit had greater plans for her, and so she goes.  Be happy, Olivia.  A life of pain is over.”  She patted Olivia’s back, and then held her back at arm’s length.  “There are secret things I must do, alone with my cousin.  You go, Olivia.  Go, now.”

Olivia nodded, wiping at her wet eyes, and left them.  She wrapped her arms around her baby-hard body and staggered down the passage, sobbing inconsolably.

After a while, someone, she couldn’t tell who, came and put an arm around her.  She leaned into the warm body, and let herself be led away.  She heard voices, and one embrace was exchanged for another—the strong, familiar arms of Vorgullum.

“What happened?” he asked. “What hurts? Great Spirit, is it the child?”

“Murgull,” she managed.

Vorgullum’s grip tightened.  “Murgull is dead,” he said, and then said it again.  And again.

“I was there,” she wept.  “I saw her die.  I felt her soul go past me.  It was cold.”

He rocked her, silent.  All around them, talk was beginning, and there was fear more than sorrow in their voices.  Olivia cried herself empty, there in the commons, while the cavern filled with gullan.  No one said much, but eyes were moving continuously towards Olivia and away.