The Gathering Night (6 page)

Nekané said:

Before we do that, I'll tell you how I left behind the woman I'd been before, and how I was born into a world that was new to me. I can't say everything because it would destroy you to hear it. But the story I'm about to tell won't hurt you, so there's no need to look afraid.

I'd wandered far inland, past the Long Loch and the Boat Crossing Path, and by hunters' paths into the hills around our Mother Mountain. At River Mouth Camp the Year was already beginning to grow strong and green, but it was too young to have reached the hills. I walked back into the old Year, right up into the high snows. I climbed beyond the oaks, through the birch and scrub willow, past juniper and myrtle, up into the empty places where People are not meant to go until the Year has opened the way for them. There was no food up there. It was very cold. I didn't care. I was thinking only of Bakar. It was in the old Year that he went away, so only by returning to the old Year could I follow him.

When I reached the bare rock, Mother Mountain was hidden in mist and I couldn't go any further. I squatted down, leaning forward with my arms between my knees to rest my aching back. I stayed there in the shelter of a little cliff while the cloud swirled above my head, sometimes dipping down to smother me. It was too wet and cold to sleep much. I had no food. If I'd had no purpose I'd have died, but my purpose burned inside my ribs and kept me from freezing.

I waited for days and nights and then a dawn came when everything came clear. The cold Sun struck the rocks and made them gleam. I looked at the little cliff above me and saw a place where I could climb up. Lichen and mosses grew among the boulders, but the bloom of the new Year wasn't on them. I was glad of that, because my purpose lay in the past. I came to the top of the hill. The air was still and cold. A greater world than I had ever seen glimmered at my feet. I saw beyond the lands of our People and the lands of our People's kin. I saw range upon range of hills, from our own lands which we know, into the far blue where there are no more names.

I saw the Sun cross the sky and set behind an unknown horizon. I saw the stars move through the circling Year. Yet again I saw the Sun cross the sky. I watched it travel through the high paths of summer and the small paths of winter. I saw the Moons wax and wane. I saw how the Years were born, and how they died and came back again, and how everything that lives follows the pattern of the circling Years through all the births and deaths from the Beginning.

As I watched I died. No living creature can see all the Years and live. I died. My body lay on the hill. Ravens came and pecked out my eyes. They tore my belly open and ripped out my guts and ate them. Lynx drove away the ravens, and feasted on my stomach and my heart. Wolves came and devoured my limbs, splitting open my bones to eat the marrow. And last of all came Bear, who tipped up my skull and licked out the meat inside it.

As the Sun sank into the far-off sea, a Dolphin came out of the water and swam through the sky. He leaped joyfully through the waves all around the high hill where my body had once lain. I heard him call. I sat up. My Dolphin swam so fast I couldn't look into his eye, but I could see how he was watching me. His glance was kind. I heard him laugh. In my old life I thought the sea Animals spoke without making any sounds that People hear, but now I often hear their laughter.

When my Dolphin dived into the deep again, sadness pierced me through, opening the wound below my ribs which I got when I lost my son. I watched my Dolphin go, and from the ripples of his dive I saw Swan rise into the air, flapping his wings to get free of the water. I'd seen that Swan before. In the world I'd left, I'd seen that Swan rise from the still water at River Mouth Camp. I hadn't known it was carrying Bakar's soul out of our world. Now I understood. Swan told me that while Bakar was out of the world Swan would accompany me instead. My Swan told me that he wouldn't leave me – although there would be many days and nights when I saw nothing of him – until the Moon came when he would bring Bakar back to us.

That's how Dolphin and Swan came to be my Helpers. I know some of you have seen them just as I do. Not everyone can see them. But every one of you knows them, because, through me, they are Helpers for us all. If we hadn't lost Bakar, they wouldn't have found their way to us. I can't say – none of us can say – how things might have been better or worse. All I can say is, ‘This is how it is.' And that's as much about my path to Wisdom as I'm able to tell you.

S
ECOND
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IGHT
: W
HITE
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EACH
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Haizea said:

Last night we told you how Bakar was lost and my mother went Go-Between. I can see it's going to take a while to tell this story. I don't know how many nights you'll have to sit here listening to us talk. The story's like a River: it flows as it will, and no one can make it go any faster. The Go-Betweens want us to tell you everything that happened after my brother was lost. They say it's the only way for us Auk People to decide about the Lynx names. So listen, all of you!

In Auk Moon a cold wind came from the Sunless Sky and blew away the cloud that had settled over us. Day after day the Sun shone down. Spirits woke in the woods and marshes. The gorse turned flame-yellow as if the Sun had showered down sparks of fire that fell like snow. The air smelt heavy as honey with gorse-blossom. From the shore we saw the first Auk flying over the shining waves. Joyfully we held up our arms to greet them. Sand Island looked near enough to throw a stone across, even though it was a day's voyage away.

My father watched the auks flying towards the Evening Sun Sky. He looked at them for a long while. He said that now we should leave River Mouth Camp, and go to White Beach Island.

I was so excited! The spirits who watched over my birth had been waiting for me at White Beach Camp for ten winters. Some People return to their Birth Place every Year; I don't think those People can guess what it was like to be me the day I first returned to White Beach Camp.

The sea only lets us through to White Beach Island in certain Years. Sometimes we go to Sand Island in Auk Moon; sometimes we move to another Camp on Mother Mountain Island. But in some Years a small cold breeze flows from the Sunless Sky and lingers under the young Sun. The wind from the sea gives way to it, taking the clouds with it. Sky and sea blaze blue, as if the stars are on fire and won't let the daylight put them out. Islands move in closer. Little sounds from far off ring across the water, clear as pebbles in a spring. The sea flattens into a bright path that beckons us into open water, further than anyone would want to take a boat in ordinary Years. Those are the Years when our families know they'll find each other at White Beach Camp in Auk Moon.

Day after day my father climbed Look-out Hill. Every day he stood there for a long while. He felt the wind against his cheek. He watched the birds flying over the marshes. He gazed towards the Sunless Sky, looking far-off through the Narrows to the place where our River meets Open Sea.

My father told us that the sea would soon be ready to let us through. We let the wind speak softly to the sea until the swell went down. The day we left, the sky was the colour of the bluebells under the birches, with swirly streaks of cloud high up, like blown smoke. We covered the hearth at River Mouth Camp with turfs. We left dry firewood inside the winter house. We stretched our arms up to the spirits who'd watched over us at River Mouth Camp. We explained to Bear and Boar that we were going away for a while. We gave our clearing back to the Animals, and told them that if we were still alive we'd like to come back to River Mouth Camp in Yellow Leaf Moon.

We floated our big boat. We loaded it with hides and birch-bark, furs, baskets of roots, bundles of bone and antler, and meat and water for our journey. Life is usually easy at White Beach Camp, but we take plenty of work with us, and do it outside during the long days when the Sun gives us as much light and warmth as he possibly can. We paddled downriver through reeds and grasses taller than a man. Our boat slipped past the birch that overhangs the stream – the tree with the mossy fishing-place where we lie along the trunk dangling our lines. We glided past our fish traps. The River widened and went mud-coloured. Reeds and bullrushes hid its banks. Moorhens paddled out of range as we slid past.

We came into open water. Geese grazed in the salt flats. The sea flooded into the estuary, pushing the River backwards as it tried to escape towards the sea. Brown river-water was lost in the flood like smoke in mist. In the Narrows the flood would be too strong for us. We paddled out of the current, between rafts of floating seaweed, towards the Morning Sun shore. It was almost the middle of the day. We laid our paddles across the lip of the boat, and waited for my father to say the word. At last the Sun climbed as high as the young Year would let him. My father stared at the sky. He smelt the wind. He watched the water lapping higher up the shore. Now the tide was wetting the stones four fists below the line of dead leaves and seaweed which marked the height of the spring flood. Three fists . . . nearly two fists . . .

‘Now!'

In a heartbeat Amets leaped into shallow water and pushed us away from the shore. He scrambled over the stern as the current caught us. The tide still flooded through the Narrows, but it was getting weaker. We paddled as hard as we could. Now we were into the Narrows. The sea ran swift and deep between low cliffs. The rocks on each side rose sheer as if the land had been sliced open with a knife. The tide grew weaker. The River grew stronger. Now the River was helping us against the tide. The Narrows opened out between rocky islets. Through our boat-hide we felt the pulse of the Open Sea.

Waves lapped our bows. The boat stirred at the familiar taste of salt. Its winter sleep was over; we felt it waken under us.

The men sat on the bundles of furs to paddle, with the spears and harpoons lashed alongside. Everyone smelt of seal blubber because Alaia had rubbed so much of it into our sea cloaks. She'd made me help her. I'd said I didn't think we need do
all
the cloaks every Year. But she was right as usual: we were soaked with spray long before we reached White Beach Camp. The dogs crouched uneasily on top of all the things. Alaia was our fire guardian now my mother was Go-Between. The fire guardian has to be someone who stays in this world and isn't likely to suddenly go away or forget all about it. Alaia carried the fire in a leather bag lined with damp moss, arranged so the oak embers wouldn't burn through the hide. We knew that whatever the weather brought us, our fire would be safe with Alaia.

The sea crinkled and sparkled under the Sun. Seals slept on the skerries beyond River Mouth, wet bodies gleaming. One or two raised their heads to watch us pass, but they didn't move. They knew that no Seal had agreed to give itself that day. The wind from the Sunless Sky touched my right cheek with its cold finger. We met it head on, paddling as fast as we could into the slackening flood.

I knelt in the bows between my father's knees. I paddled on one side and he paddled on the other. I'd made myself a new paddle because my old one was too small, and my father let me think that my hard paddling helped us along. When we'd cleared River Mouth and turned towards the Evening Sun Sky, Amets raised the mast. Soon the wind filled our sail. My father said I needn't paddle any more, although he never broke his own stroke for as much as a heartbeat. I dabbled my fingers in the shining water and watched Fierce Point grow nearer.

White gulls wheeled overhead. Rafts of auks in their new spring feathers slid over the waves. I felt that old Aurochs' hide come alive against the soles of my feet when he felt the sea against his skin. He saw how the Auks let the sea slide away under them, and he did the same. He hadn't forgotten he was Animal. Through his skin I felt the sea ripple against my skin. I flexed my toes against his frame, and I felt the strength in the hazel wands as they remembered to bend with the sea. Small waves made slapping sounds against his side. Our boat was Auk. We – Aurochs, Hazel, Willow, Dog and People – were Boat-Animal. We were Auk.

Slowly River Mouth country turned from grey-green to blue under the High Sun Sky. The cliffs of Mother Mountain Island were like rows of teeth snarling at us. White water curled over the reefs off Fierce Point: we kept well away. Now we were coming into different water. The tides met, tossing our boat to and fro between them. At the foot of each swell we couldn't see over the crest. Amets' young dog started whining. But the flood was slackening. My father had been too clever for it, and its strength was almost gone. We rounded Fierce Point at slack water into the great groundswell of the Open Sea. Now, far off under the High Sun Sky, we saw the soft blue shadow of White Beach Island.

The ebb tide swept us forward. The sea settled into a slow swell. Looking back under the sail, I saw the snow-capped mountains of the lands that lie under the Sunless Sky. Beyond those mountains Amets' family have their summer Camps. That's Esti's country, although our Esti hasn't been there in her present life. Ahead of us, White Beach Island turned from a hump in the blue distance to firm land with green grass and thickets of trees. Between us and the island lay islets surrounded by stretches of gleaming seaweed and drying reefs.

‘Take down the sail!'

Amets obeyed my father at once. Our boat rocked in the swell. Seaweed rose and fell beside us, so close I tried to reach out and touch it.

‘Stop that, Haizea! Amets, listen to me! We're coming into the channel. No, you can't see it yet. As we go through I'll tell you the sea-marks. B . . . my son . . . he knew the marks as well as I do. Now it'll be up to you. I'm not saying these women mightn't know something about it. Women are always listening to what doesn't concern them! But if you rely on your wife to tell you your sea-marks, you might as well cut off your balls now and be done with it. So listen, and remember!'