A Whisper of Wings (12 page)

The women stalked into the depths. Overhead, the ceiling opened out until it faded far from view, and walls glistened slick as eelskin in the torchlight. Daimïru and Zhukora reached the far end of the cave only to find it blocked by rocks; their journey had come abruptly to an end.

Shattered Kashran skeletons were strewn across the floor. In the breathless air the dead had withered into shrunken mummies. Daimïru kept her spear cocked in its woomera, her eyes fixed upon the screaming faces of the dead. The huntress almost feared to speak within the oppressive silence.

“Th-the tribe. Nochorku-Zha will want to know. About the cave, I mean.”

“The tribe!” Zhukora gave a snort, then kicked a withered corpse. “Nochorku-Zha and his heroic band of elders. Why waste our time in telling them?”

Zhukora tried to hide her disappointment. The cavern’s promise of adventure had withered; there were no enemies to battle, no wild discoveries to thrill their eyes. Only broken corpses and an empty, useless hole.

“Nothing! No more life than my stupid father!” Zhukora stamped on an ancient skull. “Useless! All useless. We’re wasting our damned time! Nothing ever goes the way it should!”

“Zhukora!”

The leader slammed her fist against the wall.

“Nochorku-Zha! That thief Prakucha! Rules and ties and regulations!” Zhukora reeled as the sickness twisted at her brain. “Fire’s death! It makes me burn every time I think of them. There’s no hope, no freedom. Just endless repetition on and on and on…”

*Stop snivelling girl. If the world offends thee, go out and change it!*

Zhukora waited until the night grew still once more. She stood within a ring of skulls, her long hair spilling down to glitter in the dark.

“Show yourself. Come out and face me! Or are you nothing but a coward skulking in the dust?”

The words echoed in the empty cavern. Zhukora merely glared and waited.

The ïsha trembled as a titanic presence slowly split away from the dark. Its light spilled up from corpses, from rocks and ancient crevaces, while unseen winds swirled and hammered through the cave.

*I am here, girl. I have watched thee - felt thee - waited patiently for thy coming. It is rare to find a creature such as thee.*

The girl confronted the shifting glimmer of the Ka.

“What do you mean a creature such as I? What sort of creature?”

*One who holds the world within her hand. Thou walk’st through the dream of power like an all-consuming star!*

Zhukora slowly let her spear sink down and suspiciously eyed the huge presence hovering about her.

“You speak nonsense. How is it you can speak at all?”

*I am not some pathetic nature spirit! I like the world, girl. I like the power of it.*

“So why speak now? Why show yourself at all?”

*I spoke because I am intrigued by thee. I spoke because I like what I have seen. I spoke because I can bear no more of thy pathetic, childish whining!*

Zhukora’s jaw dropped in indignation.

“You dare!”

*Dare? Yes I dare! Zhukora. Zhukora the complainer. Zhukora the coward!*

“I am Zhukora! Zhukora-kai-Nochorku-Zha. None dare call me coward!”

*Prove it then! What mighty deeds has Zhukora done? What great achievements can she boast? What powers has she gained? Is she happy with her pathetic little life of servitude?*

Zhukora‘s power blazed; she gave a snarl and punched out with a bolt of light, and the spirit casually parried it aside.

*Thou would’st fight me, then? Good… It seems courage has not died in these last thousand years. Come daughter, still thy anger. We must speak together.*

Zhukora hissed; the power still blazed within her hands.

“Fight me! No one calls Zhukora coward!”

*I will not fight thee, Zhukora the warrior. I shall not pluck this world’s most priceless flower. Come! I have a gift to bring to thee.*

“What do you mean. What sort of gift?”

*I bring thee the gift of sight.*

The Spirit stirred, and corpses rolled and tumbled in the breeze.

*This carrion, do you see them? A monument to their own cowardice. Where courage called to them, they responded with terror. They lost the purity of their vision.

*If thou fear to take the future in thy grasp, it will always escape thee.*

Zhukora scowled as the Ka glowed and coiled sinuously around her.

*Thou crave’st for challenge? Then here is challenge for thee, Zhukora of the forest clans! Here is the test to prove thyself before the judgment of eternity! Thou say’st that thou wish changes? Then make the changes happen! Rise and take the future by the throat!*

Zhukora’s breath grew ragged as she stared into nothingness, her mind alive with furious energy. She felt the power flowing through her - the dawning realisation of a wild dream of destiny!

A thousand years of stasis - a race trapped inside its self-made cage. Corruption slowly breeding in the stagnation. No challenges, no progression, like an animal pacing around and around again inside its pen until it drove its spirit mad.

They must break free. Everything - everything must be changed! Like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis to soar into the sky, the people must be awakened.

“It will take time! I-I must make plans. I never… I never really stopped to think…”

*Thou art a hunter! Take the opportunities and strike with unrelenting fury. Thou art a thinker. Resolve thy obstacles into problems and deal with them one by one! Be ruthless. Be savage. Think only of the price of thy failure.*

Zhukora looked up, her face lit by dawning joy.

“Why? Why are you even interested in me? What does a spirit care about mere mortals?”

*I care, Zhukora! This earth is dull - no fit place for brilliant creatures such as thee. I would see the world grow bright again. Find the dream! Light the fire sleeping in your soul and bring the glory back again!*

Zhukora moved to the cavern mouth, her face still blazing with her revelation. The girl paused in the entrance, pulling her hair back from her face.

“What is your name, my lord Ka? What should I know you by?”

*My name is not important. But if thou wish’st, thou may call me Serpent.*

“I thank you for your words, Lord Serpent. I thank you for your gift.”

Zhukora moved out amongst the weeds, the spirit’s words drifting softly on the wind behind her.

*I wish thee well, sweet daughter. I wish thee joy…*

“Danger? Yes, it’s danger. Danger of growing old within this hell! Danger of letting ourselves fade beneath their rules. It’s our world, our future! It’s time, my love! It’s time we flew out to ride the winds of destiny!”

Daimïru’s face lit up with joy. Zhukora grabbed her hand and drew her laughing up into the air.

“We can change the world, my love! We only have to want to make it happen. We can take the nightmare and turn it all around into a glorious new dream!” Zhukora buried her face in Daimïru’s shimmering blonde hair. “A future, Daimïru! It’s ours if we choose to make it! Will we sit and whimper, or fight to take what’s ours?”

Daimïru clutched Zhukora’s waist, whirled by a dizzy rush of power as Zhukora reached out to her hunters with a cry.

“Are you with me? Will you share The Dream?”

Her answer came as a blaze of adoration. The Hunters raised a howl of fury in the night, and wings swept out as Zhukora’s followers stormed up into the sky. They lost themselves within the ecstasy of Zhukora’s vision.

***

Shaded prettily beneath a pair of orange wings, Shadarii sat basking in the rosy glow of a rich, creative mood. She had perched herself upon a rock in the middle of a waterfall, and clean white river foam surged her in a wild, refreshing spray. She sat cross on the rock, her beautiful soft tail curled around into her lap while her wings flipped open and closed in silent thought.

A “music stick” lay in her lap. The long strip of wood had been notched with marks, each cut showing the positions of the fingers when blowing a note upon a long reed flute. It was a simple trick the music students used to memorise their tunes.

The girl stared, her mind alive with tenuous thoughts. In a state of absolute absorbtion, she gazed out into nothingness and let the ideas take hold, tapping a piece of charcoal against her fuzzy chin.

The name ‘Shadarii’ was a melding of three other words: Shadii Dalu Rïkra - “Precious gift of love”. A name honouring the mother that had borne her at the cost of her own life.

Shadarii; a message of three parts.

When an artist created a rockpainting of a story, they made a simple representation of each object they depicted. Could an abstract word be shown in much the same way? What if words could be made into pictures? What if one day Shadarii could paint her words for everyone to see? Finally she would have her voice!

So if one… one simply tried to paint a sentence like a story is painted on a rock, what then?

An object seemed fairly simple to depict. If you needed to say “rock”, then a rock could be drawn on the bark; but what about an action? Running? Flying? Difficult, but possible…

- What about something truly abstract and unseen? What about an emotion or a name?

Shadii-Dalu-rïkra. Precious gift of love. How do you draw a picture of love? Two partners joining in the bed? Surely not! “Precious gift of sex”? Hardly a name one wanted to be stuck with - Although perhaps Javïra…

Bah! The problem still remained. How? How to show it? Shadarii scratched her pretty nose and frowned; there was an idea almost forming in her mind. Almost but not quite…

Bah!

It wasn’t working. There were too many indefinable words. Just thinking through a list of peoples names made her brain whirl. Shadarii, Zhukora, Nochorku… Who could possibly find a way to turn them each into pictures? What use was a sentence made only of things and objects?

Damn!

Shadarii had a dream - a dream of knowledge being held and cherished like a treasure. Day by day an untold wealth was lost! Each old man who died took with him a thousand stories. Every grumbling old woman owned a store of cranky wisdom. If it could only be captured. If there were some way other than ritual dancing, something that could be stored and kept in a single form without endless reinterpretation…

Oh? Shadarii spread her wings and rode the smooth, soft ïsha currents of the river, swooping down to land beside the skinny little girl. Shadarii let herself be led up into the trees to where the forest was being stripped back to the bone.

The Swallow-tails were desperate for food. Guests were coming, and the garden groves had already been plundered bare. Even the seed stocks had been eaten; the trees were stripped of fruit, the yams were dug and the nuts all picked. Hundreds of women splashed in the river harvesting bullrush roots while men hauled angrily at empty fish traps. Every last scrap of food had been combed out of the forest, and still it wouldn’t be enough.

There were more people in the clan than in the year before. Ten years of good weather had increased the forest’s yield, and the population had expanded to match nature’s bounty. Now the price was being paid; a single average year had triggered off a famine.