The Kin (26 page)

“Then Tun said to Bal,
We are not enough. My mate Sidi is dead, and my child. Now I and my brother Var go back to our old Good Places. We find people from the Kins, from Snake and Parrot and the rest. We say to them, Come to our new Good Places
.

“Bal said to them,
How do you go through the desert?

“They said,
We go by the canyon, at night, when the animal people are in caves. By day we hide. When the canyon comes near Dry Hills, we climb out
.

“Bal said,
This is good. Go
.

“Yova said,
My baby is dead. I go with them
.

“So they are gone. We do not see them again.”

Noli thought about it. Yes. About three moons back, Suth had stood high on the mountain, looking east, and had seen three people coming out of the desert. He'd said they hadn't looked lost. They seemed to be going somewhere.

She forced herself to ask the next question, though she'd already guessed the answer. “Where is Pul?”

He was the boy who'd been with Bal's party when she'd last seen them.

“A lion took Pul,” said Shuja in a low voice. “Noli, this lion is not like the lions we know. It hunts people. We are afraid. The men also.”

“We too saw this lion,” said Noli. “It killed a boy. It is a demon lion.”

“Noli, you are right,” said Shuja. “It is a demon lion.”

She frowned suddenly and looked around the group by the fire, checking them off. “You are all here, Noli,” she said. “All that were with us on Dry Hills. Three small ones, Tinu, you, Suth. What boy did the lion take, Noli?”

“It took a boy from the canyon people.”

“Noli, these are not people. They are animal people.”

“Shuja, they are people. They are friends. They were with us here, but they feared the lion. They went back to the canyon. When they find no food there, I think they come back.”

“When Bal sees them, he is angry,” Shuja warned. “Noli, how are you friends with these … people? How did you come to this place?”

Noli started to tell her their adventures. The wood-gatherers came back in the dusk. By that time the air was cooling fast, so they stoked up the fire and sat around it, getting used to each other after their long separation. They'd all changed. Suth settled down confidently with the men, and it looked for a moment as if Bal was about to snarl at him to go away, but he changed his mind and just sat brooding. Bal was the only one who didn't seem delighted that they were together again.

Perhaps it was easier for Suth than for Noli. He had the leopard scars to prove what he had done. He carried a digging stick and a cutter. Noli had nothing to show for the changes in her, though for nine moons she had helped Suth lead their little group, keeping them safe and together. She had carried Otan through fire and flood.

And, too, for nine moons she had dealt with First Ones: dear Moonhawk, and awesome Monkey, and the strange wordless One who belonged to the canyon people. None of the women sitting by the fire had done that, but they spoke to her as a child. In their eyes she was Shuja's age. In her own mind, yes, she
was
a child, but at the same time she was older than any of them, almost as old as old Mosu, who led the Monkey Kin up in the mountain.

A thought came to her.

This is how it is with those who deal with the First Ones. They become old. So it was with Sol
.

Several days passed. Normally the men would have hunted separately, but they all stayed together because of the lion. They knew it had already taken two children. This wasn't surprising. Hunting beasts often went after young prey. They were easier to catch and less likely to fight back. The few women couldn't guard the children alone, but “eight people make a lion,” so with the men they could drive it off, if they faced it boldly.

So they foraged, and dug out ants' nests, and smoked out bees' nests and took the honey, and found juicy grubs, and had plenty to eat. These were indeed Good Places.

They explored a wide tract, using different lairs. Sometimes they saw groups of lions in the distance and kept well clear of them, but they saw no sign of the demon lion until, crossing a line they had travelled two days earlier, they found some unmistakable huge footprints. A single lion. Its tracks lay on top of the human footprints they themselves had made, and went in the same direction.

As they sat around the fire that evening, they discussed the problem, and Suth told them Tinu's idea for a lion trap. He didn't, of course, tell them it was her idea. He knew they would laugh at the idea of a child, a girl, who couldn't even speak clearly, having anything useful to suggest.

The men took to the idea at once, and since none of the places they'd laired had the sort of sheer drop that the trap needed, they insisted on returning to that first outcrop to build it.

The task took them a couple of days, between expeditions to forage. There were no loose rocks at the top of the outcrop, so they heaved some up from the plain and pushed them off the ledge to see how they fell. Then they heaved them up again and propped them safely against the back of the ledge.

Next they piled rocks into the point of the notch, fitting them carefully together so that they stayed firm, but leaving a narrow tunnel running deep into the pile from a little way up.

Tinu happily practised running to the pile and diving into the tunnel and huddling down in the wider space they'd left at the bottom. She climbed out, grinning her lopsided grin each time. She didn't seem to care about the danger.

The men weren't bothered either. Tinu was bait. They didn't really want her to be killed, so they built the trap as well as they could. But she was only a girl, and she couldn't speak clearly, so no one was ever likely to choose her for a mate. If anyone could be spared, she could. It would be worth it to get rid of the lion.

But Noli watched the trap being built with sickness in her heart.

“This is dangerous, dangerous!” she told Suth. “This is Tinu! She is not bait! She is people … Moonhawk … our Tinu!”

“Noli, you are right,” he said. “This is dangerous. Tinu is people. But see, this lion, this too is dangerous. Every day, this danger. How do we live in these Good Places, day and day and day, every day this danger? Do we choose this? Do we choose danger for Tinu? One day and no more?”

“For this I am sick in my heart, Suth.”

“I, too, Noli. Then I think,
This lion is old. He cannot carry a man away. He takes children, Pul, the boy from the canyon. Now does he take Ko? Does he take Mana? Does he take Otan?
For these also I am sick in my heart.”

He shook his head and sighed, not looking at her.

“Noli, perhaps the lion does not come,” he said. “Perhaps it is afraid after we burn its lair. It does not come, no danger to Tinu. It comes, we are ready.”

She waited, forcing him to look her in the eyes, then spoke with absolute certainty. “The lion comes, Suth. It is a demon lion.”

Next, partly to further explore their new Good Places, and partly in the hope of luring the lion back to their trap, they made a long expedition over the plain, lairing on two fresh outcrops, and returning to their main base on the third evening. They found the canyon people there already.

They must have come only a little while before. The air was full of their cries and calls as they climbed the rock and settled in.

Instantly Bal's hair bushed out. He snorted and hunched his shoulders and strode towards the rock. Noli could see that Bal thought the outcrop belonged to Moonhawk. He would have been furious if he'd found one of the other Kins lairing there without his permission, let alone these creatures who were not Kin, and perhaps weren't even people.

Suth trotted up beside him and put his hand on his forearm.

“Bal,” he said, “these people come here with us. They help us, we help them. They are friends.”

Bal swung on him. “Who speaks to Bal?” he growled. “Who is this boy?”

Suth stood his ground.

“I, Suth, speak,” he said firmly. “I say these are our friends.”

Bal hefted his digging stick. Suth moved his own, ready to ward off a blow. Net, on Bal's other side, tried to intervene.

“Bal, these are too many to fight,” he said.

Bal shoved him away.

“I say these are animals,” he snarled. “They have no place in a lair of Moonhawk.”

“I live among them,” said Suth. “I lair with them. I journey with them. I, Noli, Tinu—we do these things. We know these are people. Bal, you do not do these things. You do not know them.”

Bal dropped his digging stick, seized Suth by the throat, and shook him violently.

“They are animals!” he roared. “Moonhawk says this to me. They are animals! Boy!”

Suth was tough for his age and size, but he hadn't a hope against a big strong man in a fury. Bal battered him to and fro.

For a moment Noli just watched, frightened and helpless. Then something started to happen inside her. Something flooded in. She felt it come pouring through the top of her spine. It filled her head with darkness. She felt her hair stand out stiff with the pressure. Her eyeballs seemed to bulge as if they would burst. Froth bubbled from her mouth.

She took two paces forward and opened her mouth. The thing inside her came out.

It came out as a shout, a voice louder and stronger than Bal's, a voice to shake mountains.

“Bal, you lie!” said the voice. “Moonhawk comes no more! These on the rock are people! They are my people!”

Bal let go of Suth. He turned. His hair fell back against his skull. He stared at Noli. He knew what had happened. Sometimes Moonhawk had spoken through his own mouth with a voice like this. He was afraid.

“Who speaks?” he stammered.

“I, Porcupine, speak!” roared the voice.

Of course
, thought Noli.
Porcupine
. In the darkness of her mind she heard the buzzing rattle of the angry quills, caught the musty reek, saw the gleam of a small black eye.

He comes back with his people
, she thought.
He comes to me, Noli. And I give him words
.

Oldtale

THE PIT BENEATH ODUTU

Sol journeyed with the child Vona as his guide. Far and far they journeyed
.

Each morning when they woke, Vona stood and closed her eyes
.

Sol turned her around and around
.

Sol said, “Vona, which way do we go?”

Vona pointed the way. Sol put her on his shoulder and they set forth
.

They passed by Odutu and the Mountain above Odutu. They came to the desert beyond Odutu, the desert that has no end
.

Vona said, “We go this way.”

Sol said, “I have my gourd Dujiru. It is never empty of water. I do not fear the desert.”

They journeyed five days into the desert. They came to a canyon
.

Vona said, “We go this way.”

At the mouth of the canyon a blue demon stood in their path, a wind demon. He made himself into a
whirling wind that filled the canyon from wall to wall. With the voice of the wind he said, “Sol, you cannot pass.”

Sol threw his cutter Ban-ban into the whirling wind. It sliced to the heart of the demon. It splintered into tens and tens of little cutters. They cut the wind into tens and tens of little winds. The winds scattered. They whirl in the desert to this day
.

Sol and Vona journeyed on. They came to a cave in the wall of the canyon
.

Vona said, “We go this way.”

A black demon stood in their path, a night demon. He filled the cave with thick darkness, so that Sol could not see where to place his feet. With the voice of the night he said, “Sol, you cannot pass.”

Sol threw his digging stick Monoko at him. It pierced him through. He fled into the night. Monoko is in him still. In the dark of night Monoko is seen in the sky. It is five stars
.

The cave grew thin and low, like the tunnel of a ground rat
.

Vona said, “We go this way.”

Sol went on his knees and crawled like a hyena. He went on his belly and crept like a lizard. A red demon stood in his path, a fire demon. He filled the tunnel with fire. With the voice of the fire, he said, “Sol, you cannot pass
.”

Sol threw his gourd Dujiru at him. It split and a river came out of it. The river quenched the fire. It swept the demon away, and the gourd also. It flows under the earth. At Yellowspring it comes out. The water is hot. It tastes of fire
.

Sol came to the Pit beneath Odutu
.

He saw the Mother of Demons, where she sat, giving birth to her sons
.

He said, “Mother of Demons, call home your children, or I kill you.”

The Mother of Demons laughed. She said, “Sol, you have no digging stick. You have no cutter. How do you kill me?”

He said, “With my hands and my teeth I kill you.”

He went towards her
.

She spat in his eyes, and he was blind. She breathed on his body, and he was an old man. His strength was gone
.

She said, “Now kill me, Sol.”

One came to Sol in the Pit beneath Odutu. One entered him, filling his body. One spoke through his mouth. The Mountain shook with the sound, the Mountain above Odutu
.

One said, “Mother of Demons, hear this. It is the word of the First Ones. Send your children to their own Places, to the dry deserts and the snowy mountains and the dark woods. Let them go no more into the Good Places. These are for people. Do this, or it is war between us, and we are the First Ones.”

The Mother of Demons said, “Who speaks?”

The One said, “I, Black Antelope, speak. I speak through the mouth of my son, the hero Sol.”

The Mother of Demons was afraid
.