CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES) (64 page)

The other men
sprang forward.  Holding his knife in front of him, Tron stepped back
toward the trees.  His eyes were fastened on the approaching men, and he
did not see the slight figure hurtling toward him from behind.  But Zena saw,
and she gasped in horror.  It was Rofal.

"You have
violated Sarila, and I will kill you for that," Rofal screamed, slashing
at Tron with a sharpened stone.

Then, all was
confusion.  Everyone sprinted toward the fighting pair.  Zena ran
with them, terror in her heart.  Rofal was not supposed to be here; they
had not told him of their plan, lest he try to fulfill his vow.  And now
the man was Tron!

Rofal jabbed
wildly.  Zena could see the fury in his face, the answering fury in Tron's. 
Tron would kill him, kill the child who had come from him!  Already he had
knocked the stone from Rofal's grasp, and his big, unforgiving hands were
reaching for Rofal's throat.

"It is your
son!" she screamed at Tron.  "He is your son!"

Tron whirled at
the sound of her voice, and as he turned, Rofal retrieved the sharp stone and
plunged it deep into the big male's chest.  Tron screamed and fell to the
ground.

Gunor grabbed
Rofal with his good arm and thrust him toward Pulot.  Rofal was shivering
now, stiff with shock at what he had done.  Pulot held him tightly, so he
could not escape, but still her arms were comforting.  

Zena bent over
Tron.  His eyes were open, but there was a filmy glaze across them. 
He stared into her face.

"He is
mine!" he said hoarsely.  "He is mine, for I gave him
life.  I came to take him from you.  I will take him from you
still..."

But Zena knew it
was not true.  Flecks of blood had appeared around Tron's lips, and
already his skin was waxen.  This time, he would not recover. 

She called for
water, a cool poultice for his brow.  Tron had hurt her badly, hurt all of
them badly, but he was dying, and they could at least offer him comfort. She
began to tell him of the son he had never known.  Perhaps to spend time
with Rofal would have gentled him, pulled some of the violence from him, for
then he would have seen the helplessness of a tiny child, seen how even a young
man-child needed help.  Perhaps it would have been so.  She thought
it must be true, for when Tron looked at her again, the challenge had left his
eyes.  He looked confused now, as if he could not understand.

"He has
killed me," he said, so quietly only Zena heard.  "I thought to
take him with me, teach him how to hunt, how to..."

His voice
faded.  He sighed, a deep sigh that seemed to emerge from a place inside
himself he had never known, just as he had never known his son.  Zena held
the big, hairy head in her arms and watched her tears fall on his dirt-streaked
face.  He had looked so brutal once, she thought.  Now he only looked
lost, lost and empty, as if nothing were left inside him. 

*****************************

They buried Tron
with great care, as if to make up for their earlier neglect.  Zena herself
saw to the washing of his body, massaged his limbs with lavender and other
soothing herbs, to bring him peace during his journey to the Mother.  The
others brought fragrant flowers and placed them gently across his big frame,
covering the jagged scars left by tearing horns and sharp hoofs. Tron had killed
many animals, but the creatures he had killed had left their marks upon him.

When they had laid
him deep within the Mother's earth, they went to the circle of stones, to
remember him and commend him to the Goddess, as they always did for one who had
died.  Each person tried hard to think of something good to say of Tron,
hoping the Mother would take him back to Her heart and thereby change him, so
the violence that had seemed to rule his life would die with him.

"Tron was
braver than any in the hunt," Krost said.  "He did not hesitate
to come to my rescue when an animal had turned on me, or any of the
others.  Once, he saved Bakan when a bison charged him, by thrusting his
spear into its chest."

The others were
silent for a moment, thinking of Bakan, who had returned to the Mother a few
years ago.  He had been the oldest and most respected man in the tribe,
and they missed his wise and patient presence.

"Perhaps we
should have spoken more to Tron of our admiration for his hunting skills,"
Zena said finally.  "Maybe then he would have felt better with
himself."

"I think Tron
never understood why he was not liked," Conar said quietly.  "He
tried to make us like him by acting strong, by becoming a good hunter, but all
he did was make us afraid.  We went away from him instead of coming
closer."

"He liked to
hurt, though," Lune said.  "I could see it in his face.  We
must not make him better than he was because he is dead. Instead, we must try
to understand why he acted as he did."

"It is true
that Tron liked to hurt,"  Nevilar agreed, placing a protective arm
around Sarila's shoulders.  "Perhaps he learned that when I permitted
him to hurt me."

"The desire
to hurt was there already,"  Menta told her.  "It was part
of him from the very beginning, so you must not blame yourself.  Nor is it
Zena's fault that she could not change him.  The badness was deeply
ingrained in Tron long before she began.  Even the Mother could not make
it right."

"Perhaps he
was born with this badness, just as an animal is sometimes born with the urge
to kill others of its kind," Katli remarked.  She opened her mouth to
speak again, and closed it abruptly.  Rofal was sitting across from her,
his head bowed on his knees, and she did not wish to say what she believed,
that animals born with this murderous urge sometimes passed the urge to the
young they helped to create.

"The brutal
men Gunor speaks of in the north cannot all be born with the desire to
hurt," Tragar objected.  "Some, at least, must learn it."

"Perhaps some
are born with it, but many others must learn," Zena answered. 
"It is easy to imagine how that can happen in a tribe where those who
fight are admired.  Then, there is no one to teach the children that
hurting others is wrong."

The others nodded,
thinking of Rofal.  Zena had insisted that each time he fought with
another child, one of the adults must take him aside and speak of the need for
kindness and caring between those who lived together.  Their efforts had
seemed useless then, for Rofal had just looked stubborn, but in the end, he had
changed.  The violence in him had seemed to disappear until the attack on
Tron, and that they could understand.

Now, it had
disappeared again.  He was limp, without energy, and so withdrawn Zena
wondered if he would ever speak again.  She watched him carefully, lest he
banish himself as she had so many years ago.  But she did not think he had
the strength.  It was almost as if he had done the thing he had been born
to do, and now all the vitality had drained from his body.

Was that, perhaps,
the Mother's way?  Perhaps those who forced Akat on a woman were doomed to
die at the hands of the children whose lives resulted from their
violence. 

It was not over,
she thought sadly.  There was more violence to come.  Even without
Menta's vision, she knew it in her bones, her belly, in the feeling of
wrongness that had not left her when Tron had died, but only dimmed a little.

The feeling
diminished still more as the seasons passed with no sign of the violence she
feared, though it never left her completely.  Then, almost five years
after Tron's death, it began to escalate again.  One day, a white-haired
woman stumbled into the clearing, a baby on each hip.  A group of hungry
children trailed behind her.  Their tribe had been raided by a band of
men, she told Zena.  They had killed the men and the old ones, stolen the
women.  She and the children had been in the forest and had managed to
escape.  For many days, they had been walking, looking for another tribe
with whom they could live.

Zena took them in
gladly, but her heart was heavy with the news.  It was only the beginning,
she knew.  More of the bands of men would come, then more, as Menta's
vision had foreseen.

Gunor knew who
they were.  "These are the fierce hunters from the north who killed
so many in my tribe," he warned Zena.  "I know it is so, because
that is how they act.  They kill without thought, all but the women they
want for their hunters."

"They come
because of the cold," Katli added.  "The animals they hunt are
leaving and they follow.  Gunor and I saw this when we tried to go north
to hunt."

She was
right.  Slowly, inexorably, the cold had extended its grip.  Blankets
of ice that never melted covered what had once been tundra, vast stretches of
forest had become barren snow fields where the wind howled and only stunted
bushes could grow.  As the air grew ever more frigid, the ice thicker, the
huge herds of reindeer and bison traveled slowly south, seeking forage. 
With them came the tribes that preyed on them, the fierce hunters Gunor had known
so long ago. They sought fertile valleys where game was plentiful, warm caves
for the long winters, women for their hunters.  The home beneath the
craggy cliffs Zena and Conar had discovered so long ago had everything they
needed.

Anger boiled in
Zena's chest at the thought that these savage men, who knew nothing of the
Goddess, might desecrate Her home, the sacred circle She Herself had
built.  She would keep it from them, she vowed, for as long as she
possibly could.

The anger
dissipated as quickly as it had come.  They could not defend the caves
against men like this.  As Menta's vision had shown, they were brutal
beyond belief.  They were young, some hardly more than boys, for the
hunters sent the young men ahead to scout for new homes for their tribes. 
Alone and leaderless, they were more savage even than the men who spawned
them.  Killing was no more than a game to them, Akat only a way to
hurt. 

They might not be
able to fight them, Zena decided, but they could hide from them.  The
Mother had given them the caves, and they would make good use of Her
gift.  One day, perhaps, they would have to leave, but she was not ready
to give up yet. 

"We must be
ready, in case the men should ever come here," she told the others. 
"To fight them is impossible, but the Mother has given us the caves in
which to hide.  There, we will be safe, but we must learn to enter without
being seen, learn to go through the passages without light, so the men cannot
follow."

They covered the
cleft that led to the caves with brush and rock, so that no one who did not
know it was there could find it.  Each day for many weeks, they practiced
darting unseen through the trees to the tunnels, gliding silently through the
dark, winding passages until they came to the Mother's chamber, where finally
they could see.  Soon, every child, even the smallest, knew the way. 
After that, they collected food as well as extra furs and tools to keep in the
chamber in case they were needed. 

Conar became their
scout.  Sometimes he was gone for many weeks as he tracked the roving
bands of men - the men with knives, they called them, for their flints were
long and sharp.  Each time he left, Zena suffered agonies of fear lest he
be killed.  But Conar could move like an animal, without ever being seen,
and he always returned.

"The men with
knives are heading north to join their tribes for the winter," he reported
with satisfaction when he came to join them in the Mother's chamber after his
latest foray.  "There will be no more raids now."

"They will
come back when the snow melts," Zena replied grimly.  "Then the
killing will begin again."

The young Zena
came to stand before her mother.  "Why must the men kill?" she
asked, her eyes filled with bewilderment.  "Surely the Mother
provides enough food and caves for all.  The men do not need to kill to
get them." 

Anguish showed in
Zena's face as she tried to find words to answer her daughter's question. 
To speak of violence to one so innocent seemed a desecration.  Only six
years had passed since the young Zena's birth, and until the men with knives
had come south, she had known nothing but peace and kindness.

The child looked
up, waiting for an answer.  Her face was grave, her eyes wise beyond her
years.  Zena's courage returned.  As Menta had seen, this daughter
was of the Mother.  Almost as soon as she had words, visions had begun to
come to her.  And if she was to survive in the years to come, she must
understand.

"It may be
that they kill because they have come to love violence in the same way we love
the Mother," she began slowly.  "That sounds impossible, I know,
but it can be true when people have forgotten the Goddess.  You see, my
child, there lurks in some of us a terrible capacity for violence, which only
the Mother and the wise ones can control.  Young men especially can fall
prey to it.  There is a fluid inside them that makes it so.  When
people like this worship one who encourages violence, they come to believe it
is right.  Then all is lost, for children who have never known kindness
are capable of great brutality when they are grown.  We have seen that in
the men with knives."

Zena knelt and
looked deeply into her daughter's eyes. "Remember what I have told you, my
child, for one day you will take my place.  It is the sacred task of all
those who bear the name of Zena to serve the Goddess and teach Her ways."

The young Zena
nodded. "I will not forget," she promised. 

"I am certain
you will not," Zena responded, hugging her warmly.  "One day,
when you are older, I will bring you with me to the Kyrie, so that the Goddess
Herself may teach you.  But now I must go by myself, to learn if there is
more we can do to keep the violence from coming."