Chapter 4: From out of the Wilderness
The night that Tull and Fava returned from their wedding journey, the young Pwi of the village gathered to celebrate three miles south of town at the edge of a small lake that the Pwi called “Perfect Mirror for a Blue Sky.”
They sat beside a bonfire, singing and drinking beer all evening, and told stories about Tull and Fava in the same way that humans will when someone dies. In a way, Tull and Fava would be leaving their single friends forever as they clung to one another in their new life.
Beside Tull the old Neanderthal sat, looking suspiciously at the group in his ragged clothes. He still clutched his map case and spear, as if fearing that someone would attack him at any moment.
Since he could not tell his name, Tull called him Uknai—the Pwi word for “cripple,” and the old slave seemed not to mind.
Tull’s little brother, Wayan, was combing Tull’s hair, and as one boy finished telling a story, Wayan asked Tull in Pwi, “You feel buttery. What makes you feel buttery? Is it because the moon is shining on you?”
“The word is sweaty. I feel sweaty because I am too near the fire and I’m dressed in hot furs.”
The smoke from the crackling fire crept low over the lake; two of old Anorath’s dogs yapped as they hunted mice beneath a tangle of mossy logs. Thor hung overhead, yet enormous redwoods blocked the moon and starlight, deepened the night.
On the other side of the fire was a human girl, Darrissea Frolic, a dreamy-eyed young artist who crafted finely scented paper by hand, then inscribed love poems on it.
The love poems were sold to men who were too clumsy or too illiterate to create a poem themselves, and seldom did a ship leave Smilodon Bay without a sheaf of Darrissea’s poems. Tull felt honored to have her here this night.
Darrissea pulled her wool cloak tightly around her throat to keep out the crisp air, stirred the yellow-hot coals at the edge of the fire with the toe of her finely crafted otter-skin boots.
She looked out of place, the only human at the celebration. Her awkward features contrasted sharply with the blunt, chinless faces of the swarthy Neanderthal boys with their deep-set eyes. Her long wavy hair was nearly as black as her eyes—far from the hues of the redheads and few platinum blonds among the Pwi.
Darrissea was thin with a slender artist’s hands, not the knobby fists of a Neanderthal. She wore a brilliant blue cloak embroidered with golden geese flying around the edges, a white silk shirt with a lace collar, cream-colored leather pants.
Many Pwi boys were wearing only moccasins and long black cotton breechcloths, as if to prove to each other that the chill air did not bother them.
Among the Pwi, Darrissea appeared almost alien. But even among the humans of town, she’d always been a misfit. Her father had been a freedom fighter—a stern man who hunted slavers and openly fought pirate bands—until he’d died of poisoning right here in town five years back. Darrissea lived alone in his house now, never making close friends with her own kind, somehow more comfortable among the Pwi.
Darrissea sipped cautiously from a mug of warm green beer, the kind the Neanderthals liked, and scowled at the taste, then peered around nervously to see if anyone would notice her scowl.
“Would you prefer wine?” Tull asked. “We can have one of the boys go back to town to fetch it for you.”
Darrissea looked up, and her dark eyes glittered in the firelight. “No. You’re a Pwi, now that you’ve turned your back on the human half of your heritage. This should be a Pwi celebration—even if it means drinking beer that tastes like … this.”
Fava cut in. “It would not be a bother—”
“No bother, I’m sure,” Darrissea said. “But you Pwi are taking on too many human customs. A hundred years ago every Pwi on this coast lived in a hogan, but now a stranger can wander the street in Smilodon Bay and not tell where the human part of town ends and Pwi Town begins. You work the farms and mills, but your grandfathers hunted with spears, trailing the mammoth herds.” Darrissea nodded at some of the boys and girls who had painted their faces blue and decorated their hair with swordtail ferns and strips of cloth—not the kind of garb they would wear while working in Ferremon Strong’s fishery.
No, tomorrow they would come to work with their hair combed down, many wearing pants and tunics like any human. But tonight the young would party the night away in celebration of the wedding just as their ancestors had even done on Anee for a thousand years, perhaps as their ancestors had even done on Earth a hundred thousand years before.
Though Darrissea and Tull had been speaking English, the universal trading language used by her Starfaring ancestors, Darrissea raised her mug and spoke in the soft nasal language of the Pwi. “Hezae, anath zhevetpwasha palazh. Friends, let us reverently continue to give life to the past.”
Tull and Fava drank to the toast, and Tull asked, “Will you give us a poem for our wedding present, something I can read to Fava?”
Darrissea looked into the fire, dancing flames reflected from her black eyes. “I think your life should be a poem to the person you love. You just live the poem—each act, each carefully measured step, designed to convey your love, so that as your lives unfold the catalog of your deeds reveals the depth of your passion.” Darrissea smiled and looked up at Tull and Fava. “But if you want words on paper, I will give you those, too.”
Anorath, a young Pwi of nineteen, got up and walked to the beer barrel; his bracelet of painted clamshells rattled as he scooped out a mugful of beer. “I gladly remember a time,” he said, “when Tull first moved here. That old human, Dennoth Teal, had a big peach tree, and every year he hid all the peaches away like a pack rat and would not sell any, so Tull and I decided to steal some peaches.
“We went at night, when Freya and Woden gave just enough moonlight to pick the peaches, and we each carried three bags. No wind blew; the only sound was the mayor’s dogs howling as we picked, when we suddenly heard humans sneaking toward us.” Anorath laughed and stomped on the ground, imitating a human trying to sneak in his clumsy boots. “So Tull and I climbed and hid in the thickest branches.
“When we were at the top, I heard a human whisper, ‘Here it is! This is the tree where I saw them!’ and I was so scared I thought I would pee, because I knew old Dennoth would club us.
“But two men climbed till they were so close, I could smell the humans’ stinking breath. I was sure I could smell a gun in Dennoth’s hands, and I hoped only that he would beat me instead of shoot me. I got all dizzy from fright and thought I’d fall until Tull grabbed my arm and pulled me higher.”
Anorath stopped for a long drink of beer. A boy pushed another mug full of beer into Tull’s hands and Tull downed it quickly.
Anorath continued. “The humans began picking peaches. They were only humans who had come to steal the same peaches. They worked several minutes, filling some large baskets—and friends let me say; it’s wrong for us Pwi to always pick the fruit; with their tiny, clever hands the humans worked faster than Tull or I.
“They began at the bottom and picked the tree as they climbed. When they were almost on us, Tull grabbed one human by the neck and shouted in English, ‘Now I’ve caught your ass, you thief!’
“The human squealed like a pig and dropped his peaches. He fell from the tree, and they both fled so fast that when we got down we found a shoe left on the ground. Tull and I took all their peaches and ran home.”
The Pwi laughed, and Tull smiled. “I’d forgotten about stealing those peaches,” Tull said. “That was a good time.”
“Ayaah, I had almost forgotten, too,” Darrissea said from across the fire. “I’m the human girl who fell from the tree—though I’d say that rather than squeal like a pig, I squeaked like a rat!”
Anorath nearly dropped his cup in surprise.
Fava and the other Pwi laughed. Tull had never told anyone about stealing those peaches. He felt a great sense of peace and realized that he had been drinking too much and now he was drunk; yet he was drunk on more than beer. He was drunk with kwea, a deep sense of satisfaction, of merriment, at being with old friends.
Tull sighed. “It will never be like this again,” he said, “with all of us here. All of us drunk and laughing.”
Fava hugged Tull. “Just because we’re married, it doesn’t mean the world will end. We’ll still get together with our friends.” Fava turned to Darrissea. “You must come and visit us soon.”
Tull looked across the fire, smiling a melancholy smile. The slow gravitational wind hissed through the tops of the redwoods, signifying that Thor would set shortly. Tull said, “I hope you’re right, Fava. May we all get together with our friends and laugh often.”
Darrissea nodded her head solemnly, looked at the ground, mist in her dark eyes.
“The peaches were good,” Tull said, “if that consoles you. They tasted sweeter for having been stolen twice.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed the fruits of my labor,” Darrissea said. “I forgive you.”
In Darrissea’s eyes Tull saw only sincerity. “You always speak the truth. I like that in you.”
“It’s a bad habit. One that I’m trying to break.”
“Don’t break the habit,” Tull said. “I find it entertaining.”
Darrissea cocked her head, questioningly.
“I remember when we were young,” Tull said. “Your father was still alive, working with freedom fighters up at Storm Hold. He had come home for a summer, and you were mad at him. You stood in front of Moon Dance Inn, yelled at him, ‘You know, if you stick your ear up to your ass, you can hear the ocean.’ Everyone laughed, but your father slapped you. Now that I think about it, I’ve always enjoyed watching you. You can say the most amazing things.”
Darrissea raised an eyebrow. “Which entertained more, the remark or the beating?”
“The fight was fun at the time, but I still laugh at your joke all these years later.”
“I remember getting hit, but I’d forgotten why my father hit me. You know, you remember those words simply because it is something you wanted to say to your own father. You were always a quiet rebel, full of anger. I could see it in your eyes. I was always a noisy rebel, a dumb one with a bloody nose.”
“You had the courage to speak the truth,” Tull said.
“And you had the wisdom to keep your mouth shut.”
A log broke in the fire, and a shower of cinders spiraled upward. Tull raised his mug. “To rebellion, and truth, and martyrdom.”
Darrissea raised her mug in return and shook her head, “To all but the last.”
The old Neanderthal, Uknai, suddenly stirred in his coat of rags. He grunted softly, got up, and went to the keg of beer where a lantern lay, then set the lantern next to the fire and grunted, gesturing for everyone to come near.
Uknai carefully unscrewed the lid to his map case and all around the fire, people drew close. He pulled out a thin piece of cloth, unrolling it gently on the ground.
Tull wondered what would be on the map, but as the crowd of Neanderthals drew in close, he could see little over their backs except a flash of color, while those nearby gasped.
Tull pushed his way forward; the cloth did not have a map drawn on it, but a painting, and something in it took his breath.
It was a large painting—a landscape of a bleak plain. In a junkyard littered with broken guns and swords was a pale green swath of land with some tired daisies where a young Pwi man and a Pwi woman made love. But above them mountains towered, and carved in the purple-gray stone were the greedy faces of the Slave Lords of Bashevgo: ruined old men slavering and leering, as if they would eat the young lovers, or as if they pondered something more evil.
An ingenious use of contrasting colors, a grandeur in design, made the portrait stunning. Tull could feel the kwea of the art, as if the painting itself were vibrating and causing movements throughout the crowd. He seldom got that feeling from mere objects—yet some pieces of art carried it, held more power than they should. Uknai’s painting was that way—an icon of power.
The crowd around Uknai quieted, and the Pwi became solemn. Tull realized that there was little beauty in the picture. Only horror. Pain and suffering.
And the beauty that existed in the lovers upon the green swath of lawn was all overshadowed by the horror of the Slave Lords. The picture was a story Tull did not want to hear, yet he could not take his eyes from the painting.
Uknai pulled out a second canvas, spread it before them and once again the Neanderthals breathed in awe.
The young Pwi woman lay tied to a beautiful bed carved of ivory, gazing out of the picture, and tiny crows flew from her mouth. A handsome human straddled her voluptuous naked body, smiling curiously. The human seemed intent on the pain and terror etched in his victim’s face. He wore a shirt of golden butterfly wings, and golden rings adorned his ears, and everything about him spoke of wealth and grace. Behind him a string of other beds lay, each holding a dead woman.
In his right hand he tenderly fingered the Pwi woman’s throat, but everywhere there were crows flying in the background, so that the background became only a mass of black crows, and on a distant hill, Uknai sat by a wall of stone while a crow perched above him, speaking into his ear.
Tull wondered if the picture represented a real rape, or if it represented the rape of Uknai’s people in Bashevgo. He listened to the murmurs of the Neanderthals, heard their unspoken outrage. Uknai was a master artist, playing his audience carefully, a man of wit and passion and skill, and his works stunned the Pwi.
A third picture showed Uknai running down a city street, a small and insignificant creature charging full tilt between tall buildings of stone that opened like a dark throat, a bloody knife in one hand, a child’s doll made of reeds in another.
From every window, from every darkened passageway, eyes looked out, and from above, one could see that the world was a maze of dark passages with no escape. Tull knew then that this was Uknai’s story, his personal story, and not a symbolic retelling of the horrors of all the slaves in Bashevgo. Some of the Neanderthals looked at the bloody knife, grunted, “Well done!” for they were happy to see that Uknai had killed a Slave Lord.
Uknai reached into his case and pulled out a final painting, and the crowd moved forward. Before Tull could see it, he heard snarls from those in close. The picture was painted in blacks and purples, and showed Uknai, broken, bruised and frightened, sitting on a hill of skulls, clutching the child’s doll; above him was a cage of bones, without a key or lock. Dancing through the sky, ghouls with grave clothes leered down, and floating in the sky among them were men in red armor, men without faces, and two of them stooped, as if having just set Uknai in the cage.
The hill, the ghouls, the cage of bones, Uknai’s vacant and hopeless eyes staring out. Anorath drew the lantern nearer, so that everyone could see, and all the young Neanderthals frowned. Tull had heard rumors of the Cage of Bones, where Neanderthals sentenced to death for murdering a Slave Lord were sent. Rumor said there was no escape, no exit.
Tull’s heart pounded, and all his world narrowed to Uknai’s eyes, staring out.
Uknai pointed at the man in the cage and groaned tonguelessly, pointed to himself. “That is me in that cage,” he was saying, and pointed helplessly at the men in red armor.
“Those are Palace Guards of the Blade Kin,” Fava said, pointing at the men dancing through the sky in red. “Like the men who were chasing Uknai.”
The dark-purple nighttime, the yellow bones, the flying Slave Lords and their demonic servants.
Yet the pain in Uknai’s eyes is what captivated Tull. The painting was beautiful, yet it horrified Tull to the very depth of his soul. Here was a man who had lived in a chasm so fast and deep that Tull could not fathom it, while Tull and his friends stayed here in the relative freedom and safety of the Rough.
Tull thought idly, For every one of us Pwi living here in the wild, a thousand live in slavery in Craal or Bashevgo. All my life, I’ve enjoyed my freedom, never considering how the vast hordes live.
It shamed him. Darrissea leaned in among the crowd and touched the last canvas, caressed a corner as if judging the worth of it, and she looked up at Tull, rage in her dark eyes.
She held it up for all to see, then whistled for attention. “This is Bashevgo!” she said. “This is our future. All our lives we’ve been hiding out here in the Rough, living in this wilderness of sleep. We all know that someday the slavers will come, and some of you talk of escaping to Hotland. But I don’t see many places left to hide!” She pulled a knife from the sheath on her hip drew it across her wrist. “I swear to God by my blood that I shall free Bashevgo before I die!”
She raised her bleeding wrist for all to witness. Tull thought, She must be drunk. Old Uknai grabbed the knife from Darrissea, drew it across his own wrist, silently held it up.
Tull’s heart pounded, blood thundering in his ears. He had never heard talk like this, open talk of war, and he marveled that an old man with a handful of paintings could hold such sway over them.
Yet the rage was in him, the pent anger over what the Slave Lords had done. Tull grabbed the knife, drew it across his own wrist, and shouted, “I swear to God by my blood, that I shall free Bashevgo before I die!”
The young Pwi of town watched as if they were three madmen.
Fava said, “You can’t expect a hundred Pwi to take on the Slave Lords of Bashevgo!” Tull looked in her eyes and saw not fear, but rage. She was angry at him.
“Are you so certain?” a soft voice asked in Pwi from behind them.
***