‘Well, he can wait,’ she grumbled. ‘I’m not spending one more night out in this damned rain.’ She cast outwards for the beast and found the bright spark of its awareness. She urged it to curl up elsewhere. A throaty rumble answered that, as reluctant as she. Yet the crashing of undergrowth and the shuddering of nearby trees announced the great animal’s capitulation. Hanu, at his post, visibly relaxed. His hands encased in their armoured gauntlets eased from his belt.
‘Tomorrow, then,’ she said. ‘We might make it in one day if we push it.’
‘
Very well
.’ Hanu’s response was just as reluctant.
That night she dreamed, as she almost always did now. This time she was not fleeing the bony reaching hands of the Nak-ta. Rather, she found herself wandering the deep jungle. It was day, the sun high and hot as it beat down upon her between gaps in the upper canopy. A troop of monkeys scampered about the treetops. They seemed to follow her wandering, curious perhaps. After a time she somehow came to the realization that what she walked was not some empty wasteland, but that the steep hillocks she passed were in fact tall sloping structures, human made, all overgrown and crumbling beneath the clutching roots of the jungle. And likewise, that the broad flat floor of the forest here was in fact a stone-paved plaza, the great blocks heaved up here and there by the immense trees.
So, she walked one of the ruins that she knew dotted the uncounted leagues of Himatan, which featured so prominently in her people’s ghost stories.
Some time later she paused, sensing that she was being watched. Yet she saw no one. After she cast about at the shadows and great tumbled heaps of stone, a figure resolved itself out of the background of a root-choked staircase leading up the side of one of the great hillocks. It was a crouching man, mostly naked, wearing the headdress of a snarling predatory cat, a tawny leopard, some of which still haunted Jacuruku lands, occasionally dragging off the unwary.
‘Hello?’ she called.
The man stood, or rather, he uncoiled; his legs straightened and his arms uncrossed, all in a smooth grace of muscle and lean sinew. He came down the jumble of broken stone stairs in an easy, confident flow and Saeng had to admit that he was the most amazing example of male beauty she’d ever come across.
Closer, however, her breath caught as she saw that the headdress he sported was none such: the man’s upper torso and head
was
that of a golden leopard. Her instincts yammered for her to run but she was frozen, unable even to scream. He stopped before her and eyed her up and down. Those eyes were bright amber slit by vertical black windows into deep pools of night. His black lips pulled back over jutting fangs, grinning perhaps.
Exhaling, Saeng managed to force out: ‘Who –
what
– are you?’
‘You know my brothers and sisters,’ he answered, his voice appropriately deep and smooth.
‘Brothers? Sisters?’
The monster nodded, perhaps grinning even more. ‘Boar, tiger, bull, wolf, eagle, bear …’
‘The beast gods. The old gods.’
The creature gave an all-too-human nod of assent. ‘Yes. Some name them Togg, Fener, Ryllandaras, Fanderay, Argen, Tennerock, Balal, Great-Wing, Earth-Shaker … their names are too many for anyone to know them all.’
‘There is no leopard god among all those names.’
The man-monster closed the distance between them in a blur. Its black muzzle brushed across her face as if taking her scent. ‘You have the right of that, Priestess. I am the one none dared worship. And do not mistake me, child. I am not a scavenger. I never skulked about your villages. To me
you
are the beasts.
You
are just another kind of pig. I am the reason your kind fear the night.’
Saeng turned her face away from the stink of its hot damp breath. ‘What do you want from me? You name me priestess. I am no priestess.’
‘You are that and more. Priestess, witch, mage. All we possess, all we know, has been poured within you.’
‘Poured? What do you mean?’
The creature tilted its head as if considering its words and paced off a distance. ‘The future, child. Any one point in time leads off into a near infinity of choices. Yet a blight sits astride an entire span of these. A catastrophe is threatening. Some of us see its approach. Others …’ his voice hardened to a snarl, ‘those who would stand aside, choose to ignore it.’
‘What does this have to do with me?’
‘It is possible that you may either ensure it or avert it. The choice is yours.’
Saeng found that the edge of her terror had eased. In fact, she was becoming rather irritated. She threw out her arms. ‘I have no idea what you are talking about!’
The creature turned its feline head to face her. ‘Really? You do not recognize where you are? Where I have brought you?’
‘Not a damn bit of it.’
Gesturing, the man-leopard invited her to approach the hillock. ‘Examine the façade.’
Saeng approached warily. She edged around the creature, giving it a wide berth. Next to the extraordinarily steep staircase the wall of the hillock, or temple, or whatever it was, held a wide band of sculpted figures. Vines and leaves obscured them, but they appeared
to
be walking in some sort of grand procession. They wore archaic costumes of short pants tight at the calves and their chests were bare – both men and women. All carried goods such as sheaves of grain or baskets of produce; some led buffalo, others pigs. She followed the processional along one side to where it ended at some sort of stylized tall shape: perhaps this very building itself. Some sigil or glyph stood atop the building and Saeng had to pull off the clinging vines and brush away the dirt and mat of roots to see revealed there the squat rayed oval that was the ancient sign of the old Sun god.
She flung herself from the gritty stone wall, nearly tripping on the many roots that criss-crossed the bare ground. She glared about for the creature but he was gone. Standing some distance off was a new figure, this one unmistakable as a Thaumaturg in his dark robes and gripping his rod of office.
As she watched, terrified, he raised his face and thrust the veined black and white stone baton skyward. The light dimmed as if dusk were gathering with unnatural speed and the colour of what light remained took on an unnatural emerald tinge. The disc of the sun itself seemed to diminish as though another object were swallowing it. Saeng had seen the sun eclipsed before but that event was nothing like this. The darkness deepened into a murky green as the object loomed ever closer. It was part of the Jade Banner, now descending, and it seemed as if it would swallow the sky, the world, entire.
‘And behold!’ the Thaumaturg bellowed into a sudden profound silence. ‘The sun is blotted from the sky!’
Now a roar gathered so loud it deadened her hearing. A mountain of flame fell upon them. It obliterated the trees, the man, the ground, herself, even the enormous mass of stone behind her as if it were no more than a clot of dirt.
Saeng awoke gasping and clutching at the dry leaves beneath her. In a quick step Hanu was next to her.
‘
What is it?
’
She forced her hands to relax, eased her taut jaws and exhaled. ‘Bad dreams.’
He answered with something like a mental shrug of understanding. ‘
Yes. But now that you are awake we should go
.’
‘Fine!’ She pushed back her hair and suppressed a groan; it was hardly dawn. She broke her fast with cold rice. Their supplies were getting low. Another day, perhaps, then they would be searching for mushrooms and roots.
They climbed down the overgrown rocks just as dawn brightened
the
eastern treetops. Beneath the canopy it was still dark and Saeng struggled to keep up with Hanu. Off a way through the trees an immense shape reared, easily three times the height of any man, and Hanu froze in his tracks. A great black muzzle turned towards the cliff outcropping and sniffed the air.
‘
Back to your home!
’ Saeng urged the huge cave bear. ‘
We will trouble you no more
.’
A growl of complaint rumbled their way; then the beast fell back to his forepaws, shaking the ground and sending a shower of leaves falling all about, and lumbered off. Hanu turned his helmed head her way as if to say: that was too close for comfort.
She waved him on, dismissing the entire episode.
Their return route was much more direct than their way out. They found the countryside deserted. Thin smoke rose from the direction of the village of Nan and this troubled her more than seeing villages merely abandoned. Were the Thaumaturgs burning as they went along? Yet why do that? To deter desertion? She hurried her pace.
It was past twilight when they entered familiar fields. Hanu motioned aside to the woods where Saeng most often used to hide to confer with the ghosts of the land. She went on alone. At least the village hadn’t been burned, yet most of the huts were dark where usually one or two lamps would be kept burning against the night. Their family hut was dark as well. Trash littered the yard and the reed door hung open.
‘Mother?’ she hissed. ‘Mother? Are you there?’
Inside was a mess. Looters, or soldiers, had come and gone. Anything of any possible value had been taken, as had every scrap of food. Through a window she saw that the small garden had been dug up and that the chickens and pigs were gone. Saeng searched her own feelings and found that she really didn’t care that the hut had been ransacked, or that her few meagre possessions had been taken. All that concerned her was her mother. Where was she? Was she all right?
She headed to the nearest light and found Mae Ran, one of the oldest of her neighbours, sitting on the wood steps leading up to her small hut. ‘Who is this?’ the old woman asked in a fearful quavering voice as Saeng came walking up. ‘Are you a ghost to trouble an old woman?’
‘It is Saeng, Mae. What has happened here?’
‘What is that? Saeng, you say?’ The old woman squinted up at her. ‘Janath’s daughter?’
‘Yes. Where is she?’
‘Saeng? Back so soon?’
‘Back? What do you mean – back?’
‘Janath said you’d gone on a pilgrimage to some temple or other …’
Saeng pressed the heel of a hand to her forehead. Gods!
Mother!
‘Well … I’m back. What happened?’
‘What happened?’ She waved a shaking hand to encompass the village. ‘The Thaumaturgs came and took what they wanted. Food, animals. The hale men and women. Only we elders and babes left now. Every decade it is so. It is as I have always said – no sense gathering too much wealth to yourself, for the gods will always send a plague to take it from you. If not our Thaumaturg masters, then locusts, or fire, or flood. Such is the lot of humanity …’
Gods, old woman! I did not ask for a sermon
. ‘Thank you, Mae – yes. I agree. So, where is my mother? Is she well? Where did she go?’
Mae blinked up at her, confused, and Saeng saw her eyes clouded by the milky white of cataract and her heart wrenched.
Ah! Ancients! I am too harsh. Who remains now to look after this elder? Or the others? Could they labour in the fields? Harvest bark from the trees to boil to quell the pangs of starvation? And the infants? Who shall mind them? The army of our masters obviously judged them too much a burden to be worth their effort. How dare I denounce them for it yet prove as heartless?
‘Go?’ the old woman repeated as though in wonder. ‘Why, nowhere. She is with Chana, her mother’s brother’s youngest.’
‘Ah! Aunt Chana. Thank you. You take care of yourself, Mae. Take care.’
The white orbs swung away. ‘We must hold to what we have, child. It is all there is.’
‘Well – thank you, Mae. Farewell.’
Saeng backed away from the hut and made for her aunt’s house across the village. It seemed strange to her that her mother should have gone to Chana’s – ever since she could remember the two had only bickered and argued. Nearing the dwelling she found light flickering within and she stopped at the steps up to the front porch. ‘Hello? Auntie Chana? It’s Saeng …’
Thunder rumbled in the distance while she waited, and a thin mist of the last of the evening rain brushed her hair and face. Clouds appeared from the east, massing for another downpour. ‘Saeng?’ a voice called, her mother’s. ‘Is that you?’
She appeared on the veranda, a young child at her shoulder. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
Saeng nearly gaped. ‘
Mother
,’ she answered, outraged. ‘What
kind
of welcome is that? I was worried sick about you. I came to check—’
Her mother waved a hand. ‘Oh, I am fine. I’m helping Chana.’ She indicated the child. ‘Look, little Non.’
Saeng frowned her puzzlement. ‘Non?’
Her mother rolled her eyes. ‘Chana’s husband’s sister’s son! You know! Non.’
‘No, I don’t – I mean, I know the name,’ she finished lamely.
‘Oh, and old man Pelu? Next door?’
‘Yes?’
‘He’s dead. His heart gave out when the Thaumaturgs came through.’
‘Ah. Thank you, Mother. I really needed to know that.’
‘Well, I thought you’d be interested. You liked him. He always gave you candied pineapple. Remember when you were four you ate so much you threw up?’