By the following evening Sinotsu had not come out of his shelter. Apart from general worries about him, there was the fact that I knew there was no food in there. I walked in with no warning call.
"You’re coming to eat with us."
He stood up listlessly without looking at me and made slowly for the door. Deciding on the spot, I picked up his sleeping furs and followed him. In our shelter I saw that he was looking into Ikaseraz’s eyes which pleased me. His strong link with Ikaseraz might keep him in our shelter and he could only gain strength from the skull. I had to call him away from it to eat. I put as much good food into his bowl as would fit and, during the meal, put extra pieces in. He seemed too absent to even know that he was eating and just finished everything I gave him.
Atutxa and I cleared up and got on with our evening tasks. When we decided it was time to sleep I showed Sinotsu where his sleeping furs were and with no surprise or words at all he went to sleep.
Hare and I discussed him before I slept and we agreed that the lammergeier must be a spirit of shame and depression that was making him think the large number of deaths was his fault. We decided that the first thing must be to get as much food in him as possible to hide his bones.
The ceremonies in the cave for each person who had died in the south kept Atutxa and me busy for quite some time. Tlez made friends with everyone and was quickly accepted which I was glad to see. It was asking much of them to have such a huge animal in the camp but she was immediately accepted as one of the group. Nobody tried to ride her except Atutxa though.
The rams’ horns were played for the Chief Elder’s ceremony, though not for anyone else’s. There were so few elders left that we had enough rams’ horns for each of them to play one. The deep tuneless sounds echoed round the cave and anyone not downhearted already certainly would have been after listening to those. Sinotsu came to that ceremony though he joined in nothing.
He came to Eraminpe’s too. Atutxa and I played harps and Mother played flute. I looked away when I saw Sinotsu’s tears, he would not want me to see him crying. He refused to have anything to do with his father’s ceremony and did not even attend it. His father had disappeared one night in Kamag. Nobody knew what had happened. The last time he was seen he had been very drunk and most people thought he had probably drowned. The dead man’s sister came to the ceremony and I hardly recognised her. She was clean and tidy and, even more surprisingly, she quietly thanked me for performing the ceremony. She had been such a loud-mouthed slubberdegullion too. When we returned to our shelter after his father’s ceremony Sinotsu smiled for the first time.
The first time he actually spoke was to ask me if he could come to the family ceremony for Eraminpe’s skull that we were holding the same evening in Mother and Father’s shelter.
"I would be very pleased if you would come. But I shall have to ask Father because it is his ceremony."
"Of course." I didn’t remark on the fact that he had spoken two sentences, let him consider it normal.
Father was pleased that he wanted to come and told me to tell him so. We all, that is our family and Sinotsu, gathered that evening in front of Eraminpe’s skull in Mother and Father’s shelter. It was beautifully done but she seemed absent from it. The ceremony was for the unnamed baby too though his skull was not there. Everybody spoke remembering the light-hearted girl who I don’t think had a serious thought in her life before they went south. Father also spoke in praise of her husband, Esonde’s son Gogoruppa. I hardly remembered him. When everyone had spoken we sang the carrying chants in case any of the three spirits had not yet reached the Ancestors. As we chanted I heard Min say
"Don’t look so glum. We are all three with the Ancestors, and they are a jolly lot I can tell you, you’ll enjoy it here."
I smiled with delight and caught Mother’s eye, she was smiling too. When I looked back to the skull Eraminpe was there.
Oskol held Sinotsu back when we were leaving and that seemed right. He might succeed where I didn’t seem to be able to.
What was said was between them of course, but Sinotsu came to the next hunting ceremony and took part. The next day he set off with the hunters.
Hare confirmed that he was improving.
"Crane has re-appeared. Nobody had seen her for a long time. We thought at first that she must be moulting but it was much longer than that. She said that there was no lammergeier spirit to worry about, Sinotsu believed in its malign presence but he had imagined it."
"I don’t know if that is good news or bad. We didn’t want to have to confront a lammergeier, but it speaks badly for the state of his mind."
"On balance it may be a good thing. When he and Crane are not attacked he will slowly begin to think it has gone away and perhaps eventually forget it."
"That would be a good outcome. I won’t tell Oskol that there is no baleful spirit in pursuit of Sinotsu though. If he believes in it he can sympathise better." Hare agreed with me.
The hunt was not very successful. All the hunters agreed that they were too few.
When we heard that the wester group had returned also, a delegation of the elders went to talk to them. They reported back to us at a general meeting which was held in the cave. Even less of the wester group had returned than of our group. I thought that might help Sinotsu and stressed to him how well he had done to get the people through a hard time. Perhaps he was beginning to believe it. The wester group had gone to the foothills of the great mountains in the southwest but had been forced higher and higher by the local groups there. Life had been a struggle between the cold and meagre vegetation of the mountain slopes and attacks by the hunters who considered the area as theirs. Most of their elders had succumbed to cold and too little food, several hunters had been killed in the fighting and few women had become pregnant. Our elders said that they seemed too dazed to put up any resistance to their idea that the two group’s hunters should in future hunt together. It seemed the only thing to do, but I foresaw arguments over how much of the kill should go to each group.
I was wrong though, it worked out well at first anyway. The bargaining was very diplomatically handled with our group’s access to their honey trees included in it. That was not so important to us now as bees had made nests in a few of our trees, but they still had considerably more than we did.
That cave meeting of the whole group was the first time that Atutxa had been with all of us. And I think it was the first time he realised that he looked different. I had stressed to him from the earliest age that he must be proud of being half ice giant. He was a handsome boy, or Mother, Father, Oskol and I thought so even allowing for our being biassed. His brow ridge was large and strong, increasingly so as he grew and he was less dark than most of us. If he behaved differently from the other children I put it down to being an enchanter from such a young age and having no children to play with when he was small. His integration with the other children was slow. They teased him, naturally, and shunned him as being different. But after he had thrashed the bullies in their first attack they never hit him again. They had underestimated his strength as I had. At that age he preferred the company of Tlez to the other children’s.
We all of us tried hard to get back to the old routine, all except Sinotsu who wasn’t up to trying at anything. But doing the old things just showed up to everybody all the people who were gone and had done these things with us the last time we did them. It was a melancholy time for us all. I took Sinotsu through the cave to spirit-world whenever I could. He seemed better for being with Crane. They spoke little but sometimes she would put a wing round him, in response to their shared thoughts I supposed. He wanted to visit the ancestors. Privately I thought he wanted to ask forgiveness of the spirits of those who had died in the south. He wouldn’t tell me if that were the reason because he knew how hard I was trying to persuade him that it was not his fault. But a visit to the ancestors is so rarely allowed, and certainly not in his present condition.
Little by little his mind did improve. The lammergeier came gradually less into his conversation. By the following summer he was prepared to admit that there was no lammergeier spirit at all. He always ate with Atutxa and me, though he had moved back into his own shelter, and his face had filled out as well as his body. Oskol told me that he was showing more strength and speed on the hunts. That pleased me not just for Sinotsu’s improvement but because they needed strong young men for hunting, even with the wester group they were too few.
Hare and I had been saying that we hadn’t seen Owl and Eagle recently so we decided to go and visit them. It had also occurred to me that Atutxa needed more responsibility as an enchanter. So one day when Sinotsu was away with the hunters I left Atutxa as the group’s acting Enchanter and went to spirit-world. Without telling him I had asked Mother and Father to keep a surreptitious eye on him because he was still young and, I thought, over-confident.
Luckily Leopard wasn’t about when I had passed through and Crane was too distracted by shrieking encouragement to the hunt to bother with Hare and me. So we slipped away north to where Hare thought Owl would be. I wanted to see Eagle too of course but only in a general friendly way. It was Owl I needed to consult about Atutxa. It might have been a mother’s natural aggrandisement of her own children that was afflicting me, but I thought that Atutxa was responsible for the wonderful warming that we had experienced. My worry was that if anything happened to reduce his influence we might return to that barely bearable cold.
They were both preening when we found them, so after a quick greeting we sat quietly by to allow them to finish all their feathers. Hare sat on my lap and I caressed his ears.
"I’m glad you’ve come Kizkur. Is all well now your group has returned?" Owl’s beautiful white feathers were finished first.
"Yes and no. They suffered many losses in the south. Some whole families are gone and with them their particular skills. We have no basket-makers now. There is one old man in the wester group who makes quite good ones and the elders have sent three youngsters as apprentices to him. It will be a long time though before we get baskets as good as the Ekarpen family made. We are getting to be half amalgamated with the westers, they lost even more than we did."
"Nobody will ever know, but you would have lost many if they had stayed, more perhaps."
"It would be comforting to think that worse was avoided."
"It may be so. Many were dying of cold."
"Mmm" Eagle agreed from amongst his tail feathers where he was finishing his preen.
"Crane says that your hunts are less than satisfactory." continued Owl. "I have thought up a good plan for that, but it is too soon yet so I’ll tell you about that later. When Atutxa is safely independent I’ll hope to get that going. You’re moving in that direction leaving him to look after them today?"
"Yes, I can’t believe how fast he is growing up."
"He will be a fine man."
"Man! He’s only a boy yet."
"No. He is nearly a man." She seemed sure but I didn’t want to think that.
"Just immediately though we should try for something to help your two groups. If possible I’d want it to help Atutxa grow his abilities too. I need to think. Talk to Eagle for a bit." She flew off and Eagle and I looked at each other.
"She’s… well… What shall we talk about?"
"Tell me what you’ve been doing, Eagle."
He did, and was still doing so when Owl returned.
"I’ve been to see Salmon because he’s the expert. He’s added some good ideas. Where shall I begin?"
I knew her well enough by now not to say "At the beginning". When no-one replied she said
"Crane has told you that a long way to the west the Vezer joins the sea. Crane is an experienced geographer but she told you one thing that was wrong. She told you that the sea in the west is endless, but it is not, there is more land at the further side. It is a scale problem, I think, that sea would seem endless to her. That’s not cogent anyway."
"I can always tell when you’ve been talking to that salmon." said Eagle. Owl had the grace to laugh.
"Alright then, Salmon and I think that you and Atutxa should take a journey down the Vezer to the sea. You can ride on Tlez. Crane is quite right that the sea is responsible for the weather to some extent and the sea spirit should be thanked for sending warmer winds."
"Owl! I should have remembered that. I’ve been distracted recently, but it’s no excuse. The Enchanter should use all available knowledge."
"Don’t blame yourself, you’re only human." she said sounding rather smug.
"Salmon’s main idea was a really good one. He says that you have a seahorse in a sacred object which would make a very good offering to the sea spirit."
"I have, yes, Atutxa and I will go and offer that in thanks to the sea spirit." I hid my dismay as well as I could. I did not at all want to lose Ukitu’s parting gift.
"She would want you to use it in that way. You can remember her at her beautiful lion image. And you carry her snake and dragon with you always."
I looked at my arms. Esonde had captured Ukitu’s paintings so well. Ukitu smiled at me in my mind.
"Yes, that is what she wants."
When I got back Atutxa came up at the run.
"Kizkur! You’ve been away so long. Faltuva cut his foot in the river and it took me ages to stop the bleeding, and I was still doing that when we thought his mother was going into labour. But it was alright she wasn’t."
"I’m sure you did fine. What’s all this ’Kizkur’, couldn’t you call me ’Mother’?
"Too late for that. It must have been your idea anyway."
"It was. But a girl can change her mind can’t she?"
He laughed and I told him about our proposed trip to the sea. He was as excited as I was.
"We’ll see how Sinotsu is after the Midsummer gathering. We can’t go until he’s strong enough to have charge of the two groups."
The Enchanter of the wester group was old and her mind was not clear.
That summer at Lazcux was more like the old gatherings. Several groups had returned including the Horse Cave people. My enquiries for Ukitu had the expected answer, they had found her body in the cave when they got back. It was lying under her lions. They had prepared her skull and put it where her body had lain and it was reverenced there every day. The Horse Cave group had gone east before turning south and had done well. They had reached the sea but found all the shore occupied and strongly defended. Further inland they had found warmer conditions and fairly productive hunting. Like everybody else though they were glad to be back at their cave.
The larger number of us meant that the ceremonies were performed with more enthusiasm and the singing and dancing had more energy about them. I think we all felt the joy of survival. As soon as I got some time to myself I went through the back to the passageway with the lions. Beneath the one that showed the breath of life I buried a pair of bison horns that I had brought as an offering to Ukitu’s beloved teacher. They were together now, they were Ancestors. I seemed to see a lion and a bison asleep and curled up together.
We had not brought Tlez, thinking she might be disruptive, but it made no difference she followed us anyway. She had such a friendly nature that nobody actually complained when she knocked things over. On the way back she was helpful in giving rides to the oldest and youngest, so we made good time.
It seemed to me that Sinotsu was enough himself again to take the responsibility of acting Enchanter for us and the wester group while Atutxa and I went to the sea. He had performed in all the ceremonies for Midsummer and I had seen him speaking to people. That combined with his greatly improved physical appearance decided me. As soon as we were rested and cleaned up Atutxa and I packed our things and set off.
The plan was to follow the river as far as possible. We strapped our packs and weapons onto Tlez’s back and walked light. The weather was fine to start with. It even became too hot most afternoons and we cooled our feet in the river. Tlez felt it particularly with her thick fur and often walked all day on the riverbed. If one bank of the river became impassable we climbed onto Tlez’s back and she would take us across to the other bank. Only on two occasions were both sides impossible and then we all made a detour away from the river. Tlez’s strength was always enough to clear a way. I often remarked to Atutxa on how beautiful the valley of the Vezer was, specially where there were gorges cut by the river through white cliffs, but he was more interested in beetles. We saw the entrances to several caves in the cliffs and I wondered if there were people in them. If there were they stayed hidden, we saw nobody on the whole journey. Not even the river traders, they must have moved away when there was no-one left to trade with.
We had brought food with us so didn’t have to hunt every day. I always put a fish trap in the river before we slept though and we usually had a fish breakfast. We only made slow progress because there were many stops for Tlez to eat. It was the first time I realised just how much she ate, she was a big animal by this time. Her thick fur was useful in one way, it protected her from the biting midges which were a constant annoyance to us.
As the river widened approaching the sea it became muddy and unpleasant on the banks so we left it and headed directly west. We both got up on Tlez’s back and she made easy work of the brush and scrub. Even from our raised position we heard and smelled the sea before we saw it. The west wind brought the strong smell of seaweed. It was strengthening all the time and the clouds were passing fast over our heads. So our first sight of the sea was of white spray flying high in the air as huge waves of water hit the rocks. But we barely noticed that with the shock of the size of it. We agreed afterwards that the way we thought of the world was changed in that instant. Our imaginations could not have produced anything near it before we saw that. We just sat looking at it for a while to let such an immensity become part of our minds.
Our hair and Tlez’s fur was blowing about everywhere but Atutxa and I had one thought at the same moment. We laughed at each other and got down to the ground so that we could run to the shore and get a closer look. We looked at each other startled to feel the smashing waves through our feet. Tlez followed us looking excited but unsure. I don’t know how long we spent there just watching wave after wave broken to flying white drops. Neither of us gave the sea spirit we had come to visit a thought I’m sure.
Only when it started to go dark did we consider our exposed position and hurried away back the way we had come. We had come though a small valley, on the way west, of a tributary of the main river which offered some shelter from the wind. It was further back than we thought but it made a good windbreak. Near the sea it would have blown down our travelling shelters in a moment.
The next morning was quite different. The air was absolutely still and it was warm by the time the sun was up just a little way. That brought out the midges so we hurried over breakfast and collected up our things and set off back to the sea. We left Tlez behind as she had found some grass to eat, she didn’t seem to like the bushes and plants that grow by the sea. On the way back to the shore Atutxa and I speculated on what the waves would be like now that there was no wind. We both thought that they would be less than last night but probably still quite high. But we were quite wrong. The tide had gone out leaving a white sandy bay and far away beyond it we could see small waves, hardly the height of my hand, breaking gently on to the sand and then drawing back before the next one.
No words were needed, we took off our boots and left them in the marram grass. Then we ran hand in hand across the sand and splashed our feet in the water. We chased each other through the wavelets until I was too tired to go on and then we sat on the sand and trickled it through our fingers.
"This is no way for two enchanters to behave" I said but he knew I didn’t mean it.
As the sun got high though we decided we should go and look for a suitable place to honour the spirits of the great ocean. To the south of our beach was a rocky headland which we scrambled over to the next bay. We walked slowly round the bay noticing that the tide had turned and the sea was slowly covering the lower part. There were caves at the base of the headland on the far side and we wanted to explore them but there would not be much time. The line of seaweed showed that they would be under water when the tide came in. The animals in the rock pools delayed us further. We had never seen crabs or shrimps alive before and the anemones were wonderful colours. The caves were a disappointment when we reached them, dark and dripping and one smelled bad. But a wonderful find at the entrance to the last one made up for it. Atutxa picked up a shell to show me. It was alive and it was the animal that makes the beautiful purple which Ikaseraz had given me as a girl. I had long ago used it all, but here was the very animal to get some more from. If there was one there would be more. We left that one there because the tide was rising and we had to climb up the headland. It would surely dry out and die if we took it with us. The headland was not steep but it was awkward to climb and we sat down to rest on a ledge of grass. As I chewed on a grass stem and looked out to sea I began to think that the sound of the waves was not right. It should have been coming from in front and below my feet, which it was, but it was coming from behind me too. I turned and saw that Atutxa was already on his feet and investigating.
"There’s a deep hole here."
"Be careful."
"I am being careful."
We lay on our fronts and peered down, but it was all black. The sound of the waves pulling the sand and shingle came up magnified and entranced us for a while. The sound of the water breaking against the rock walls of the cave below us sounded like the Vezer at home. Atutxa was up first to see what was further back in the rocky cleft behind the hole, so it was he who found the sacred cave. The entrance was a tall and narrow slit which led into a taller and very narrow cave. We prostrated ourselves on seeing that there was an altar at the back where the side walls joined. Centrally towards the back of the squarish rock forming the altar was a very large shell of the purple dye animal and several scallop shells formed a semicircle round it near the front. So we had accidentally entered a place sacred to the Enchanter of another group and lay face down for an appropriate time begging forgiveness of him or her. The ceremonies held here were unknown to us but we adapted one of our own to placate the sea creatures’ spirits who had been invoked here, and didn’t stop until we both felt that they understood and forgave us.
It was a shocking thing to have done, but as we walked back to our temporary camp I began to feel better about it. Atutxa ran ahead to greet Tlez and in the moment of seeing their mutual delight I knew we had found the right place for our sea gratitude ceremony.
That was our priority the next day. As I carefully unpacked the horse skull with its seahorse attached I spoke aloud to thank Ukitu for the perfect offering to the spirit of this great sea. It was a slow walk to the headland and an even slower climb down to the cave with our delicate sea gift, there was much passing of it between us at awkward places. That was a good thing and part of the offering.
Before entering the cave we burnt spikenard to Sky Father to ask his help with our ceremony. Then we went in and listened for guidance on the placing of the skull. It was nearly mid-day before we were both convinced that the spirit of the sea wanted us to move the big shell forward a way and lean the horse skull against the back of the cave so that it was resting on the back part of the altar. Most of the afternoon was spent thanking the sea spirits for the warmth they had sent us. When we came out again into the light the sky had clouded over but we both wanted to go down to the sandy bay where we had first seen the sea. The tide was too far in to go down the cliff and along the shore so we went back over the headland keeping to the dunes. It was easiest to walk where the roots of the marram grass had consolidated the sand. Our bay was nearly covered by the sea so we sat at the edge of the dunes to gaze outwards. The wind was not strong enough to chill us but it was raising waves that were breaking a long way out. Watching the waves soothed my mind in a similar way to the smoke mixture we used to enter the spirit world, though that did not happen. I would have stopped it anyway, if I could, it felt dangerous to do so here. Atutxa said he felt the same and it was he who saw that our offering was accepted. He saw a horse in the white foam of a wave far out in the sea. By the time he had alerted me to it the horse had dived. So it must have been a sea horse and a sign from the sea spirit that it was pleased with our gift.
We both saw the next one and grinned at each other. There were several more as we sat there until late in the evening. The sky had cleared to some extent by then and it put on a glorious sunset for us. As the reds and yellows darkened to purples we felt that we were the only people in the world.
Tlez met us as we hurried back to get to our camp before dark. She definitely didn’t like the sea.
With our thanks made we were free for practical tasks. Tlez was persuaded to come as far as the dunes the next day which we had decided to spend exploring rock pools and collecting the shellfish which made the purple dye. I dug out a pool high up on the beach to put them in as we found them. There were not many but that only made the search better as we whooped with pleasure on finding one. By the time the tide was turning we had a good collection, though none was as big as the one on the altar. We had found a good large shell to use as a collecting dish. Getting the purple required patience but was not hard in any way. Patience was needed at several stages but mostly at the beginning when one of the animals was removed from the pool I’d dug they retreated into their shells and it seemed a long time before they would put out their foot again. When they eventually did I tickled the sole of it with a piece of marram grass which caused them to shoot a stream of purple into the shell Atutxa was holding underneath. At first we put one that had contributed back into our pool in the hope of a second squirt, but it never happened so we returned used ones to the sea. We thanked each one for its gift before releasing it, in remembrance of the sacred one in the cave.
When the sea returned up the beach I tied a good piece of leather over the shell to avoid spillage. The following day we made some resin and sealed the leather to the shell in preparation for the journey back. I couldn’t go back without a present for Mother, I thought she would be pleased with some salt. If I could get enough we could have some for ourselves. We scoured the nearby beaches for large shells and driftwood. There was plenty of driftwood and we added brushwood from inland to make a good sized fire. The limit to how much we got was set by the number of suitable shells we could find to boil the seawater in. They were left overnight on the dampened down fire and we had quite a good amount. It seemed rather less by the time we’d pulled out bits of dead seaweed and such, so I wrapped it all to give to Mother.
The river traders used to bring edible seaweed and I would have liked to take some of that back too. Much searching of the area didn’t produce any that I could be sure were the right ones. I didn’t know if any of the ones we found might be poisonous, so I had to give up that idea.
The journey back was uneventful though rather tiring and we were both glad to be home. Mother was very pleased with her salt. She said that while we were away there had been a hunt and Oskol had arrived home with three wolf cubs. That should keep him occupied and happy. I knew how he had been missing Wolf.