The Shamans at the End of Time, page 4
“Vlad,” I point to my chest, and move forward until I am just two paces away from him. I see his muscles tensing as the girl comes closer, speaking to him. In his sleeveless hide tunic, he looks taller and thinner than I was expecting, his muscles like knotted whipcords. He maneuvers that heavy spear easily with only one hand. I remember his entry into the meadow. He was leading the savages. Mechanically, my mind compares him to Catalin’s killers: those savages looked shorter and sturdier. And they were black-haired. The people in front of me are tall and blond. Maybe I am lucky. For want of a better idea, I extend my right arm for a friendly handshake. My gesture has no effect on him. Shaking hands is not normal here. I almost sigh.
“Malva.” The girl reacts, her left hand pointing at her; abruptly she extends her right hand too, the tip of her middle finger touching mine. I slide my hand until our palms are parallel, and smiling at her, I teach them how to do a proper handshake. Smiling back, she responds enthusiastically, her hand pumping up and down, harder than I was expecting, shaking me.
Not bad. I go on smiling, and slowly disengage from her grip, which again gives me the impression of greater than expected strength. I half turn again toward the man, still keeping my hand extended.
“Darn,” he says, his left hand beating his chest with a muffled sound, a minor variation of my introductory move, and then he clasps my hand too, and I have the impression of holding a stone. His strong shake is almost enough to unbalance me.
One by one, the other seven savages – two women and five men – test my hand’s resilience; somehow the novelty of the ritual pleases them, and they are very enthusiastic about shaking me and my hand around. I can’t say the same about their opinion of me; their eyes are still fixing me intently, with varying degrees of hostility, making me feel like I might be their next meal. There’s such a strange contrast between their hands and eyes. The sixth in the line is the young man that I assume is Malva’s boyfriend or whatever equivalent they have. My hand advances with some reticence, but he grabs it just like the others. His eyes are no different from the others either, the same suppressed hostility. Then comes the last one, a girl with green eyes, Selma, and I have the same stupid reaction as when I first met Malva –I am strongly attracted to this girl. Something is wrong with me. Trying to absolve myself, for a moment, I allow myself to pretend this is a strange, long dream. It’s not a dream. I shake my head, and force a smile to appease the girl, without realizing that our hands are still clasped. From the corner of my eye, I see one of the others going back to the entrance to the meadow, guarding the path winding down to the river. The other savages?
A strong pat on my shoulder wakes me up. It’s Darn, pointing at the bear, mumbling something I can’t understand. One word repeats several times: “orsa”, and I guess that it means bear.
“Take it,” I say, generously, thinking I have understood his question. Even in mid-spring, a large bear provides a lot of meat, and that lowers my chances of being the savages’ next meal. This one is around five hundred kilos, at least, in my poor estimation.
Surprised, Darn mumbles something else.
“Yes, yes, take it,” I repeat, like we are players in a pantomime.
Seeming to understand, Darn snaps some orders, and theyquickly surround the bear. In five minutes, the animal is completely eviscerated. Then an argument breaks between them, about how to prepare the carcass, to make it easy to carry everything. I don’t understand their words, but they are accompanied by many expressive gestures. Or so I think, and for half a minute I make good use of my math skills to calculate some possibilities. They have two ropes, but they look fragile. I have one that can handle two thousand kilos but, for the moment, I want to keep it hidden. One of them is working on the bear’s back legs, trying to make some holes through the thick skin, and I think I understand what he wants to do.
Let me do it,” I say in my most pleasant voice. I press my hand to my chest, then gesture that they should make space for me. “My bayonet is a better tool to pierce the skin.” I wave it in front of them, and point at the bear, to make them understand that I am not trying to threaten them. Reluctantly, they move away from the carcass, their eyes fixed on me. With my bayonet, I make two holes in the front limbs, between ulna and radius bones, and repeat the process for the back limbs, between tibia and fibula. “It’s done,” I say, smiling.
One of the women picks up her stone knife and slices through the skin around the neck, then one of the men uses his stone axe to chop the head off. Another man goes into the forest and cuts four small sticks, about ten inches long, and the diameter of a large thumb. They fit well through the holes I’ve made between the bears’ bones, and their ropes are good enough to tie the forelegs, then the back legs, together with two sturdy spears.
Thinking that eight people will struggle to carry the beast, I am ready to offer my services and replace one of the girls. Before i can speak, four men grip the spears and lift the bear like it was just a lamb. I probably don’t look very smart; the girls are suppressing laughter as they look at me.
Chapter 3
On the top of the small hill towering over the long valley that led to their village, Siman was alone and bored. He would have preferred to play with his friends instead of sitting all day on the edge of the hill, watching the valley. It was important to keep the village safe, he knew, but still boring. Once in a while, something might happen, and the watcher would alert the village in a hurry. He would become a hero, briefly, but no boy had had the chance to be a hero this year. Apart from the young, restless watchers, everybody else was content with the situation; heroes usually appear in troubled times. There were three lookout posts around the village; two guarding the paths from the Great River, from where the Kalachs might attack. Kalach was their name for the Kala people across the Great River. The ‘ch’ suffix meant bad in the Vlahin language. One more lookout post lay to the north, higher in the mountains. The enemy could be deceptive and come from there too. Or friends from another Vlahin clan. The village needed to know in advance, in either case. Five times in the past, the Kalachs had tried to destroy their village and steal women. Siman was too young to remember the last two battles, and not even born the first time the Kalachs invaded their lands, but he was old enough to fear what had happened in the last one: eleven people of the clan had died in the battle, and twenty-three Kalachs, but who cares about dead enemies? The short, dark-haired Kalachs were too fond of the tall, blonde Vlahin women, and they liked to steal too. The Vlahins never steal, Sima thought with a tinge of pride, but there was a subtle countercurrent in his mind, telling him that sometimes it is easier to steal than to work.
“In half a year, I will be sixteen, have the ceremony and become an apprentice hunter,” Siman said to no one, and his own words excited him. “We will dance through the night; the Chief will mark me, and from then on, I will go with the men. After I pass the rite,” he sighed.“I will not fail.” Nervously, he kicked a pebble that went clicking down the stones – it was not easy to pass the rite; most boys failed it in the first year. “That was not good,” he told himself, watching the pebble recoiling noisily from one rock to another. A watcher should be silent. Ashamed and worried, he grabbed his knife, staring around for a minute or two, but no one was there to witness his blunder. Neither friend nor foe. The cold of the knife’s sharp stone relieved him as, unconsciously, his thumb slid up and down on it, in the heavy silence.
Two minutes later, his thumb was still sliding along the edge of the knife, a small spot of blood coloring the stone. Nothing happened, but I still failed, Siman thought bitterly. It will not happen again, and I will not tell anyone. He sheathed the knife, and for the first time felt the wound on his thumb. Just a scratch, but he moistened it with saliva to hasten the healing, as the Shamane of the clan taught them. She was a wise woman. A moment later, he perceived movement down the valley, and his eyes expanded in expectation. In profile, with his thumb still resting in his mouth, he looked like an overgrown baby. Fighting his desire to run and alert the village, he crouched and slid down, hiding behind a rock, registering everything.
The incoming group was split in two, one man walking faster, two hundred meters in front of the rest. “Rand,” he recognized the one in front. His brother. “Our men,” Siman whispered, disappointed; he would not be a hero today. Despite the disappointment, this time he did as he had been taught by the elder hunters. He waited silently, hidden behind the stone, until he could count everybody in the approaching group. He knew all the groups that left the village through the south path, their leaders and how many people were in each. “Why was Rand apart from the others?” With a small surge of excitement, he waited until Rand reached the foot of the hill, then imitated a falcon’s cry. In acknowledgment, Rand gripped the spear in both his hands, raising it over his head – the signal that all was well. It took Siman a few moments to climb down the hill. “What happened?”
“You are fast, little brother,” Rand smiled, embracing him; then he disengaged, and his gaze hardened. “We found a band of Kalachs,” he said, then waited on purpose, letting Siman’s eyes grow larger. “They ran, but...” He stopped again, playing with his younger brother. “We’ve captured one of them. Close your mouth,” he laughed, and his hand moved to push Siman’s chin up. A clack of teeth followed, to Rand’s amusement.
“Did you fight?” Siman asked, with the eagerness of a young boy dreaming being an adult, ready to conquer the whole world. Then fear came to him, and swiftly, he searched Rand’s body for any trace of wounds. There was none.
“It was an easy thing,” Rand bragged. “Sometimes, I wish to be a warrior, not a hunter.”
“But that means war. It’s a Kalach thing. War is bad,” Siman interjected quickly; he was not without a certain capacity to think.
“Only if you lose, little brother. Only if you lose.” There was something condescending in Rand’s voice; he said the thing, but did not expect to be fully understood by a small boy – the irony of not realizing that he was only three years older. Siman remained silent, and only half convinced of that ‘truth’. “Go and tell them, little brother,” Rand gestured toward the north; the village was not visible from where they stood. “They are waiting for some good news.” He laughed again, watching his brother sprint off, eager to carry his words. There was a malicious smile on Rand’s faceas he stared after at him.
“Kalach!” Siman shouted even before he entered the village, his thin voice almost strangled by the effort. Alerted, men and women grabbed their weapons and came out of their huts, running to the large open space in front of Shamane’s house. “They’ve captured a Kalach,” Siman shouted again, when he realized he’d seeded panic among his people.
“You stupid...” one man castigated him.
“Sorry,” he gasped. “I ... I can’t speak properly,” Siman answered, ashamed, and continued running until he arrived in front of Moira, the Shamane of the village.
“Siman, you scared the whole village,” Moira said, her voice calm.
“Sorry,” he breathed. “They found a Kalach band, and drove it back over the river. Rand told me.”
“Thank you, Siman. You need to rest now.” She saw how consumed by the effort he was, and he nodded meekly before turning away – it was not his day.
“We need to greet him properly,” one man shouted, waving his spear, and several other answered his call.
“No one is allowed to touch the Kalach.” Moira raised her voice a notch. “You can frighten him, if that pleases you,” she stared intently at the women and men in front of her, “but don’t touch him.”
There was a moment of inertia, then people moved in small groups, leisurely, toward the border of the village, and gathered in two long rows, between which the Kalach would have to pass. Excitement flooded their veins; four years had passed from their last fight against the southern savages. The Vlahins had won that fight, a thing that they would like to remind the prisoner in a proper way.
“When Siman arrived...” Moira said, staring absently at her people moving away. “For a moment, I thought that those two men the Mother promised would help us had arrived.” Sighing, she questioned her elder sister, Edna, with a glance.
“They will come,” Edna answered confidently. She believed it, but she also saw the hint of tension in Moira’s shoulders. Another might have missed it, but like any shamane, Edna was trained in the art of observation. “We both had the same Trance Dream, five days ago, and entered the Mother’s Web through the second River of Thought. Both of us have been shamanes for a long line. The future always comes through the dreams induced by the sacred smirna, and the smirna I prepared for me that night was stronger than usual. I used more Long Night Mushroom powder.”
“That was my impression; you recovered slower the day after. Don’t do it again. It will harm you.”
“It may,” Edna shrugged and stayed silent for a while. “I tried to reach the Third River of Thought in the Web.”
“That’s dangerous, Edna,” Moira said, worried. “You don’t have enough Amber Stones to enter the Third River. You could have died.” The Vlahins were a stone tribe and stone occupied a high position in their beliefs. It was the Mother who created all the stones for them to use, and most of their tools and weapons were made of stone.
“I entered it once and survived. Now, we have to wait for the dream to take shape in the real world.”The Mother told me that we would win the next battle, but my mate would die, defending our people. I could not warn him. Why did she put that burden on me? Edna breathed deeply, feeling as if her loss had happened only days ago. She had cried all that night – after making love for the last time with her mate – hidden in the forest, so no one could hear her.
“I hope you are right. I know... a Trance Dream, is always right. Two dreams even more.” A brief touch of resignation filled Moira’s voice, but she recovered fast. “The Kalachs are growing in numbers. Each year, more of them are coming from south to settle on the Great River’s south bank. Only the river has kept us from slavery until now.”
“The river and our strength,” Edna said in a bitter voice, remembering again that her mate died in the last fight, defending the village. He was the Chief of the village and she was Shamane at that time. While the men were shamans, the women were shamanes, but the one leading a clan was Shamane, her second name.
“And our strength,” Moira agreed, and her palm briefly touched Edna’s shoulder. “There were only a few Kalachs when the first group arrived south of the river, asking for a place to stay. More than fifty years ago, I was not even born in that time.”
“Neither was I,” Edna shrugged.
“What a mistake,” Moira said, pain filling her voice. “Another group came, and another, until they became the masters of the southern mountains. It was not our clan they destroyed, I know, but still it was Vlahin land. There were eleven Vlahin clans south of the river. They are all gone.”
“Moira,” Edna said gently. I know you are afraid, she thought. That fear was mine too before I lost my mate and passed the Shamane burden to you, but fear is not a good adviser.“We are not our ancestors. We know the evil; we are prepared.”
“Are we?” Moira asked. “They’ve stolen everything from us, even our language. They are using it now. Ah, I forgot. We’ve learned four words from their language too: war, warrior, steal and slave. And they are still coming, trying to cross the Great River. How many are there?” she asked, frustrated, her hand gesturing south.
“Many,” Edna shrugged. “Their women can’t lock their wombs, so they have more children than us, and they use both people and animals as slaves. They don’t understand that people and earth must live in balance. We make our children with care, so we grow slowly. They don’t care.”
“Because of that hideous false god. How can anyone believe in a bull? A bull can’t be a god. It’s just an animal. There is only the Great Mother, and everything comes from her, that stupid bull included. How could they forget this?”
“They worshiped the Mother too. A long time ago.”
“I know. What happened to them?”
“Who knows?” Edna shrugged. “Let’s meet the Kalach. Our people are too eager to inflict some pain on him. Pay him back for past killings. I understand them...” She did not finish her phrase.
“I understand them too, but it’s not our way, and I don’t want trouble right now. At least not until the promised help comes. We have not fought for many hundreds of years. We were not used to killing people. We’ve fought three times in the last twenty years alone, to repel the Kalachs. Their bull likes to drink blood, and their previous Chieftain liked it too. They’ve killed; we’ve killed. Once it appears, it’s not easy to dispel the idea of killing from people’s minds, and we’ve lost many good people. I’m sorry,” she added, after a brief silence.
“There is no need. Nothing can give my mate back, not even the Mother. We won each fight until now, but some of our men are looking at the Kalachs with hidden admiration Edna said, as if it had just come to her.
“I know. A few even have thought about that bull. Maduk, the second Kalach Chief, is a good story teller, and knows many things. However much I want to, I can’t stop him coming here.”
“We have learned many things from him.”
“Only what he wants us to hear. And some men feel empowered to want more. That bull again. Don’t forget; he spreads knowledge on purpose. I agree,” Moira stopped her with a nervous gesture, “they are more advanced, and some of the new things are useful, things that we’ve never discovered ourselves, but most of them are just to influence our people in the wrong way. I think I see them coming,” Moira added quickly and walked faster.
“Rune has returned,” Edna said, a surprise filling her voice. Three men had entered the village from the northern path, one of them limping slightly.
