The Burning Shore (55 page)

It broke free of the earth and floated in the air on a shimmering silver mirage.

O, bird mountain That flies in the sky We bring YOU praises.

O, Elephant Mountain, greater than Any beast of earth or sky, we hail you, O’wa sang, and as the sun swung through its zenith and the air cooled, so the Mountain of All Life settled to earth again and loomed high above them.

They reached the scree slopes, loose stone and debris that lay piled against the cliffs, and paused to look up at the high summit. The rocks were painted with lichen growth, sulphur-yellow and acid-green, and the little hyrax rock rabbits had stained the cliffs with seepage from their middens, like tears from an elephant’s eyes.

On a ledge three hundred feet above them stood a tiny antelope. It took fright and with a bleat like a child’s penny whistle, shot straight up the cliff, leaping from ledge to unseen ledge with all the nimbleness of a chamois, until it disappeared over the crest.

The y scrambled up the steep scree slope until they touched the base of the cliff. The rock was smooth and cool and overhung them, leaning out at a gentle angle like a vast cathedral roof.

Be not angry, ye spirits, that we come into your secret place, H’ani whispered, and tears were coursing down her ancient yellow cheeks. We come in humble peace, kind spirits, we come to learn what our offence has been, and how we can make amends. O’wa reached out and took his wife’s hand and they stood like two tiny naked children before the smooth rock.

We come to sing for you and to dance, O’wa whispered. We come to make peace, and then with your favour to be reunited with the children of our clan who died of the great fever in a far place. There was such vulnerability in this intimate moment that Centaine felt embarrassed to watch them. She drew away from the two old people, and wandered alone along the narrow gallery before the cliff. Suddenly she stopped, and stared up in wonder at the high rock wall that hung out over her head.

Animals, she whispered.

She felt the goose-flesh of superstitious fear rise along her forearms, for the walls were decorated with paintings, frescoes of weirdly wrought animals, the childlike simplicity of form giving them a beauty that was dreamlike, and yet a touching resemblance to the beasts that they depicted. She recognized the darkly massive outlines of tusked elephants and horned rhinoceros, the wildebeest and sassaby with horns like crescent moons marching in closely packed phalanxes across the rock walls.

And people, Centaine whispered, as she picked out the sticklike human shapes that ran in pursuit of the herds of wild game. Fairy beings, the San’s view of him self, armed with bows and crowned with wreaths of arrows, the men adorned with proudly erect penises, disproportionately large, and the women with prominent breasts and buttocks, the badges of feminine beauty.

The paintings climbed so high up the sheer walls that the artists must have built platforms, in the fashion of Michelangelo, to work from. The perspectives were naive, one human figure larger than the rhinoceros he was hunting, but this seemed to deepen the enchantment, and Centaine lost herself in wonder, sinking down at last to examine and admire a lovely flowing waterfall of overlapping eland, ochre and red, with dewlaps and humped shoulders, so lovingly depicted that their special place in San mythology could not be overlooked.

H’ani found her there, and squatted beside her.

Who painted these things? Centaine asked her.

The spirits of the San, long, long ago.

Where they not painted by men?

No! No! Men do not have the art, these are spirit drawings.

So the artists skills were lost. Centaine was disappointed . She had hoped that the old woman was one of , i the artists and that she would have an opportunity to J

watch her work.

Long ago, H’ani repeated, before the memory of my father or my grandfather.

Centaine swallowed her disappointment and gave her self up to enjoyment of the marvelous display.

There was little left of the daylight, but while it lasted, they picked their way slowly around the base of the cliff, i walking with heads thrown back to marvel at the gallery of ancient art. At places the rock had broken away, or the storms and winds of the ages had destroyed the frescoes, L but in the protected gulleys and beneath the sheltering overhangs the paint seemed so fresh, and the colours so vivid, that they might have been painted that very day.

In the last minutes of daylight they reached a shelter where others had camped before them, for the hearth was thick with wood ash and the cliff was blackened with soot, and there was a pile of dead wood left beside it, ready for use.

Tomorrow we will learn if the spirits are hostile still, or if we will be allowed to proceed, H’ani warned Centaine. We will start very early, for we must reach the hidden place before the sun rises, while it is still cool.

The guardians become restless and dangerous in the heat.”What is this place? Centaine insisted, but once again the old woman became vague and deliberately absentminded. She repeated the San word which had the various meanings hidden place or safe shelter, or vagina, and would say no more.

As Hlani had warned, they started out long before sunrise the next morning and the old people were quiet and anxious and, Centaine suspected, fearful.

The sky was barely lighting with the dawn when abruptly the path turned a sharp corner in the cliff and entered a narrow wedge-shaped valley, the floor was thickly covered with such luxuriant growth that Centaine realized there must be good water below the surface. The path was ill-defined, overgrown and clearly had not been trodden for many months or years. They had to duck under the interlocking branches and step over fallen boughs and new growth. In the cliffs high above them Centaine made out the huge shaggy nests of vultures, and the grossly ugly birds with their bare pink heads crouched on the rim of their nests.

The Place of All Life, H’ani saw her interest in the nesting birds. Any creature born here is special, blessed by the spirits. Even the birds seem to know this The high cliffs closed in upon them as the valley narrowed, and at last the path ended against the rock in the angled corner where the valley finally pinched out, and the sky was hidden from them.

O`wa stood before the wall and sang in his hoarse ghostchant, We wish to enter your most secret place, Spirits of all Creatures, Spirits of our clan. open the way for us. He spread his arms in entreaty. May the guardians of this passage let us pass through. O’wa lowered his arms, and stepped into the black rock of the cliff and disappeared from Centaine’s sight. She gasped with alarm, and started forward, but Ham touched her arm to restrain her.

There is great danger now, Nam Child. If the guardians reject us, we will die. Do not run, do not wave your arms.

Walk slowly, but with purpose, and ask the blessing of the spirits as you pass through. H’ani released her arm, and stepped into the rock following her husband.

Centaine hesitated. For a moment she almost turned back, but at last curiosity and fear of loneliness spurred her and she went slowly to the wall where H’ani had disappeared. Now she saw the opening in the rock, a narrow vertical crack, just wide enough for her to pass through if she turned her shoulders.

She drew a deep breath and slipped through.

Beyond the narrow portals she paused to allow her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom, and she found herself in a long dark tunnel. It was a natural opening, she saw at once, for the walls had not been worked by tools, and there were side branches and openings high overhead.

She heard the rustle of the old people’s bare feet on the rocky floor ahead of her, and then another sound. A low, murmurous hum, like the sea surf heard from afar.

Follow, Nam Child. Stay close, H’ani’s voice floated back to her, and Centaine went forward slowly, staring into the shadows, trying to find the source of that deep vibrating murmur.

In the gloom above her she saw strange shapes, platelike projections from the walls, like the leaves of fungus growing on the trunk of a dead tree, or the multiple wings of roosting butterflies. They drooped so low that she had to duck beneath them, and with a sudden chill she realized where she was.

The cavern was an enormous beehive. These deep winglike structures were the honeycombs, so massive that each would contain hundreds of gallons of honey. Now she could see the insects swarming over the combs, glittering dully in the poor light, and she remembered the stories that Michael had told her of the African bees.

Bigger and blacker than your bees, he had boasted, land so vicious that I have seen them sting a bull buffalo to death Barely allowing herself to breathe, her skin crawling in anticipation of the first burning dart, forcing herself not to run, she followed the diminutive figures ahead of her.

The swarming masses of venomous insects were only inches above her, and the humming chorus seemed to rise angrily until it threatened to deafen her, This way, Nam Child. Do not fear, for the little winged people will smell your fear, H’ani called softly, and a bee alighted on Centaine’s cheek.

She raised her hand instinctively to strike it off her, and then with an effort checked the movement. The bee tickled across her face on to her upper lip, then another settled on her upraised forearm.

She peered at it in horror. It was enormous, black as coal, with dark golden rings around its abdomen. The filmy wings were closed like scissor-blades and its multiple eyes twinkled in the poor light. Please, little bee, Please Centaine whispered, and the insect arched its back, and from its banded abdomen the point of its sting protruded, a dark red needle-point. Please, let me and my baby pass! The bee curved its body and the sting touched the soft skin of her inner elbow. Centaine tensed herself; tanned she knew that the stabbing pain would be followed by the sickly sweet odour of the venom that would madden and infuriate the vast swarm above her. She imagined herself smothered under a living carpet of bees, writhing on the floor of the cavern, dying the most hideous of deaths.

Please, she whispered. Let my baby be born in your secret place, and we will honour you all the days of our lives. The bee retracted the throbbing sting and performed an intricate weaving dance upon her arm, turning and curtseying and reversing, and then with a quicksilver flicker of its wings darted away.

Centaine walked on slowly, and ahead of her she saw a golden nimbus of reflected light. The insect on her face crawled down over her lips, so she could not speak again, but she prayed silently.

“Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” please, little bee, let me go for my baby’s sake. A sharp buzz and the bee flashed before her eyes, a golden mote as it left her, and though her skin tingled and itched from the memory of its horny feet, she kept her hands at her sides and walked on with a measured step. It seemed for ever, then she reached the tunnel’s end and stooped through it into the early dawn light, and her legs began to fold in reaction to her terror. She might have fallen if O’wa had not steadied her.

You are safe now. The guardians have allowed us to enter the sacred place.

The words roused her, and though she still trembled and her breathing was rough, Centaine looked around her.

They had passed through into a hidden basin in the heart of the mountain, a perfectly round amphitheatre in the rock. The walls were sheer, hundreds of feet high and with a dark satanic sheen to them, as though scorched in the flames of a blast furnace, but above that it was open to the sky, The deep bowl of rock was perhaps a mile across at its widest point. At this time of day the sunlight had not penetrated down to the floor, and the groves of graceful trees that covered it were cool and dewy. They reminded Centaine of olives, with fine pale leaves and bunches of reddish-yellow fruit on the wide-spread boughs. The floor of the valley was gently dished, and as Centaine followed H’ani down through the trees, the ground beneath them was carpeted with fallen fruit.

H’ani picked up one of them and offered it to Centaine.

Mongongo, very good Centaine bit into it and exclaimed as her tooth struck painfully on the large kernel in its centre. There was only a thin layer of flesh around it, but it was tart and tasty as a palm date, though not as sweet.

From the branches above them a flight of plump green pigeons exploded into noisy flight, and Centaine realized that the valley was alive with birds and small animals come in the dawn to feast on the fruits of the mongongo groves.

The Place of All Life, she whispered, entranced by the weird beauty, by the stark contrast of bare blasted rock cliffs against this gently wooded bottom land.

O’wa hurried along the rough path that led down into the centre of the bowl, and as Centaine followed she glimpsed a small hillock of black volcanic rock through the trees ahead. Centaine saw that the hill was symmetrical and cone-shaped, and set in the exact centre of the amphitheatTe like the boss in the centre of a shield.

Like the valley floor, the hill itself was heavily forested.

Tall elephant grass and niongongo trees grew profusely among the black volcanic boulders. A troop of black-faced vervet monkeys chattered at them from the trees and ducked their heads threateningly, grimacing with alarm, as they approached the hillock.

When Centaine and H’ani caught up with O’wa, he was standing facing a dark opening in the side of the hill. It looked like the mouth of a mine-shaft, but as she peered into it Centaine realized that the floor of the shaft sloped down at a gentle angle. She pushed past O’wa the better to examine it, but the old man seized her arm.

Be not hasty, Nam Child, we must make preparation in the correct manner. And he drew her back and led her gently away.

A little further on, there was an ancient San camp-site amongst the sheltering rocks. The thatched roofs of the shelters had collapsed with age. O’wa burned them to the ground, for disused huts harbour snakes and vermin, and the two women rebuilt them with saplings and freshly cut grass.