Shadows in the Cave (7 page)

10

A
ku looked up at the sky through the leaves of thousands of ferns. The light of the sun came through them filtered, gentle, softly radiant. A stream tumbled in from the top, creating a fine mist. Millions of droplets of water wept from the tips of the leaves, creating myriad sparkles of water-diamond light.

He gasped.

“We like human beings who appreciate beauty,” said a melodious voice. “Your father doesn’t seem to notice it.”

Aku looked up to find the speaker and saw no one.

“Here.”

Behind Aku stood a smiling young man or woman with the loveliest, most perfectly formed face and frame Aku had ever seen, scalloped by cascades of curly yellow hair. He or she looked exactly like a human being, except for being only knee-high. The Little People had come to help.

“My father is hurt,” said Aku. He knelt next to Shonan, who was gripping his leg with both hands, teeth clenched, breath sucked in and blown out hard.

“I think your dog bumped that leg on the journey. I apologize—we should have been more careful.”

Tagu growled.

“My name is Kayna,” the tiny person said. “Welcome to the land of the Little People.”

Shonan said, “Have you kidnapped us?”

“You asked for help,” said Kayna, “and we came.”

“I
did
ask, Shonan. Grandmother gave me the words.”

Shonan thought,
Her again
.

“Would you kindly calm your dog?” asked Kayna. “I’m immortal, but injuries can be messy.”

Aku rubbed Tagu’s ears. The dog kept his eyes fixed on Kayna but stopped growling.

“Immortal?”

“Just as you’ve heard.”

Every Galayi knew the tales about these extraordinary creatures who, like the inhabitants of the Land Beyond the Sky Arch, lived forever. They had magical abilities and would help Galayis who got into trouble. Their special power was protecting Galayis who performed the purifying ceremony Going to Water. Sometimes these tiny folk appeared in desperate battles and saved warriors from defeat. The Little People were mischievous, though, and tricky. You had to be careful in your dealings with them. Aku was sure there was a lot he didn’t know about them.

“I can treat your father’s wound. Perhaps you’d like to look around.”

Kayna’s smile was rich with implication. Aku was getting uneasy about someone who knew more about him than he knew himself.

Still, he stood up. Tagu moved so that he was between his master and Kayna. “Do you mind if I ask?” said Aku. “Are you a man or woman?”

“Little People are neither male nor female,” said Kayna. “But go see everything for yourself.”

“Thank you,” he said. He looked at the light-enchanted room. Something stirred in him. “It’s incredible.”

“Go. Take it all in.”

Dazzled, Aku wandered off.

“How long before I can walk again?” muttered Shonan.

“I will heal your wound right now. Then we need to make sure you don’t have a fever.”

“I haven’t got that much time.” He sounded churlish even to himself, considering the gift Kayna was making him, but his mind was on Salya.

“We brought you here because Aku has things he needs to learn.”

“My daughter, his sister—her life is in danger.”

“All mortals are in danger of their lives.”

Shonan was irked. “But…”

Kayna held up a hand. “You’ll go when Aku is ready.”

“I demand to go now.”

“Do you?” said Kayna. The healer’s eyes flickered, and a violet light emanated from them. A hand reached out and made a gentle, downward motion.

Shonan sank to the ground and slept.

Aku walked with his head cocked back, studying the immense grotto. It was shaped like a cup, top and sides a little wider than the bottom. The enchantment seemed to Aku to come from two sources, the extraordinary flood of sunlight from outside and the small waterfall that curled over the edge. The lip of the cup was a profusion of ferns which diffused the light. Farther down, the waterfall splashed onto a rock shelf and burst into a delicate spray. Gradually, as the sides of the cup descended, rich green mosses took over from the ferns.

The lower grotto walls were honeycombed with small pockets which appeared to be homes. On the floor of the grotto Little People went about their daily tasks. All of them were robed in white cloth. Though Aku well knew the dark cloth woven from the inner bark of the mulberry tree, he had never seen cloth in a luminous white. The robes were trimmed in lilac, blue, orange, and red—none were the green of the grotto. He wondered if the trimming indicated ranks or skills of some kind. Though each face was different, any one would have been the most attractive human visage he’d ever seen, reduced to the size of a palm.

Aku had never imagined such a place, or such people. He had heard that the Land Beyond the Sky Arch was beautiful, but he didn’t think anything could surpass this grotto, which, instead of being high above the earth, was actually beneath.

At that moment amazement blossomed inside his head. A kind of music he’d never heard before piped its way to his ears. He’d always known music—every Galayi ceremony had the beat of the drums, the rattle of tortoise shells, the throbbing melodies from human voices. But this was something entirely new. He walked toward the sound in a trance. Tagu traipsed along, looking strangely at his master.

It came from what looked like a workroom. River canes leaned against all three walls. A big flat stone served as a kind of table, and a Little Person—Aku reminded himself that they were neither men nor women—seemed to be blowing the melody from a length of cane. The musician’s fingers jumped up and down on the cane, and Aku saw holes beneath the flying pads of the fingers. The tones reminded Aku faintly of the tinkle that shells made when they were strung together and moved by a breeze. The rhythm made him want to dance.

“Friendly greetings,” said the piper, a twinkle in his eye—its eye?

“I’m astonished,” said Aku.

“Very few human beings have heard this music.” He tipped his head. “I am Rono, at your service.”

“How on earth do you do that?”

“I don’t know that we’re properly said to be on Earth, but I’ll be glad to show you. Here, let me have your blow gun.”

Aku had forgotten he was toting his weapons. He handed the piper his gun, which was nearly as long as Aku was tall.

Rono plucked the dart out of one end, eyed it with a sour expression, and set it aside. “Now we’ll transform something that kills to something that lifts spirits.”

The musician put the cane to its lips and blew hard.

Aku jumped. The cane made a kind of blasting sound, a little like the bugling of an elk, but cruder.

The musician picked up the small, holed cane again and twittered out a little melody, very high. “I can make one like this for you, if you like.” Rono reached for Aku’s long cane again. “Would you like me to make this bringer of death into two bearers of music?”

Aku was stumped.

“Come, Aku, you can get another river cane anywhere.”

“How do you know my name?”

“Your great-grandmother, who gave you the key to getting here, told us to watch for you. She is a mortal we respect greatly. You know, we don’t bring everyone here who cries out for help. We’d be overpopulated.” The musician smiled. “So, will you accept my gift or not?”

“Please,” said Aku.

“Splendid. We Little People hate death. That’s why we don’t indulge in it ourselves.”

Rono set Aku’s cane on the big stone, measured it with a
string, marked a spot near the middle, and with an obsidian-bladed knife cut it into two cylinders. Rono checked one for length.

“Notice first that the tone is much higher than before.” The musician blew on the shorter cylinder and got a high, sweet sound. When Rono piped on the other, it sang a lower pitch.

“First this.” Rono cut a big notch near the end where you blew.

“Now I must drill some holes,” said the musician. “Pretend you’re my apprentice and hold this piece of cane.”

With a press drill the Little Person quickly made a small hole several fingers below the notch of the short piece, and several other holes, which were almost too close together for Aku’s fingers.

With a big grin Rono picked up the cane and played. It made sweet music in those hands.

“You human beings whisper sometimes that the Little People can do miracles. Here’s murder turned to magic—what could be more wondrous?”

Aku picked it up and blew. The sounds he got weren’t musical.

“Don’t worry, I’ll teach you,” said the musician. “And now I’ll make the other piece into an instrument that will toot nicely along with it.”

When Aku went back to check his father, Shonan was sitting up.

“About time you brought that dog back,” said Shonan. “I’m starving.” He untied Tagu’s lashes.

“We apologize,” said Kayna, “but we are unable to offer our guests food. You may drink water aplenty”—he pointed
to where the waterfall trickled into a small pool—“but if you ate our food, you would never be able to go back to your world.”

“This world is enchanting,” said Aku. “I could stay.”

“Sorry,” said Kayna, “but no.”

Aku barely noticed the words. “Look what I got,” he said to his father, holding out the canes.

Shonan talked with his mouth packed full of dried meat. “What on earth!?”

Kayna took one of the canes, played a little melody, and handed the instrument back to Aku. “Rono has taught many of us to make music. Anything beautiful is welcome here.”

Shonan said deliberately, “You destroyed your blow gun to get some tootling stick!?”

“Father,” said Aku, “I can get another cane along any river. I still have the dart.” He held it out.

Shonan eyed his son skeptically while he finished his slab of meat. Then he stood up. He walked around them in a circle. He jumped. He ran. “Just as you said,” he told Kayna with a grin. “A miracle.”

“Miracles are our way of life,” said Kayna. “Now may I suggest you take a little nap? You need the rest.”

“Actually,” said Shonan, “we need to get going.”

Kayna made a downward motion with one hand. Shonan lay on the ground, scooched until he was comfortable, and slept.

From behind, Rono’s voice said, “Now, Aku, we have work to do.”

When they were back in Rono’s workshop, the piper said, “Give me the flutes. I’m going to paint them.”

“While Rono does that,” said Kayna, “I will tell you the story, and then Rono will teach you the songs.”

Aku nodded.
To hell with trying to run my own life
.

“When everything began,” said Kayna, “Grandmother Sun was made first, and then her brother Grandfather Moon and the other stars, and Earth and all the plants and animals on it, including human beings. Everyone understood that all creatures would live forever. When Sun passed through the sky and looked down on the animals and plants, though, she saw that plants made more plants and animals made more animals, and one day there wouldn’t be enough room. So she ruled that all living creatures on Earth must grow and die, and come back and grow and die again. And so they did.

“At that time Sun’s daughter, Morning, lived among the human beings. One day as Grandmother Sun made her circuit, she looked and didn’t see her daughter. When she asked, the people had to tell Sun that Morning had been bitten by a rattlesnake and died.

“Sun was angry. She scorched the Earth with burning rays. All the plants and animals, including people, suffered in the fierce heat, and many died.

“Desperate, the people asked Grandmother Sun what they could do to make things right.

“Grandmother Sun said, ‘Bring my daughter back to life. I make you this promise. If you do that, human beings will live forever.’

“Live forever! What a boon!

“But the human beings were stumped. No one had ever gone to the Darkening Land and come back. They had no idea how to begin. Finally, they decided to ask for help from the only Immortals on Earth, the Little People. The wisest of the Little People put their heads together and came up with an answer. ‘Make a box out of buffalo hide,’ they said,
‘and to go the Darkening Land. There you must find Morning’s spirit. Put it in the box and bring it back. When we put her spirit back in her body, Morning will come alive again, and Grandmother Sun will shine in a good way, and you will be immortal, just as we are.’

“But the wise ones added one warning. ‘Do not, under any circumstances, open the box on the way back.’

“Seven brave men volunteered for the journey to the west, to the Darkening Land,” Kayna went on.

Aku wondered if that was near the place where the ocean wrapped all the way around Earth and met Turtle Island again.

“When they got to the Darkening Land, the men saw that the spirits were having a dance, just as the Little People had said, and the young woman was dancing in the outside circle, again just as we Little People said. So the men followed our instructions exactly. Each time the young woman circled past them, one of the men threw a corncob and hit her skirt. On the seventh circuit, the spirit fell down. They popped her into the box and slammed the lid quick. None of the other spirits even noticed.

“The seven men traveled fast to the east, toward their homes. Before long the girl began to cry out, ‘Let me out of here. I can’t stand it. It’s awful being in here.’

“The men made no answer at all, but just walked on.

“Later the girl said in a pleading tone, ‘Please, I’m hungry. Give me something to eat.’

“But the men said nothing and walked on.

“After a long silence the girl begged, ‘I’m thirsty, really thirsty. Can’t I have a drink?’

“The men felt sorry for the girl, but they remembered the warning of the Little People and trod on without a word.

“When they got close to home, the girl cried out in
a panic. ‘Help! Help! I can’t breathe! I’m smothering in here!’

“Now the seven men got scared—maybe the girl was about to die—so they cracked the lid open just a little. When they did, they heard a whoosh of air and saw something like a shadow dart out of the box.

“When they got home and opened the box, it was empty.

“Now Morning’s body could never be brought back to life. Grandmother Sun wept copiously, and the Earth was flooded, and many plants and animals drowned. People danced to the Sun and sang songs of praise, and she quit crying. Even then, her gloomy mood cast shadows everywhere, and it was hard for either plant or animal to grow.