Calamity's Child (2 page)

If I am not chosen, I
will be forced away from this kin-group. Should that transpire, I
will shelter in the ship for the remainder of the Dark Season.
Then, if rescue has not found me, I will attempt to reach the sea.
If I make that attempt, I will record my plan here.

I have this evening
withdrawn the last of the nutrient drops and antibiotics from the
emergency locker.

He hesitated, his right hand rising to
finger the length of metal in his right ear, which named him a son
of Gineah's tent, just as the heavy braid of hair identified him as
unmarried. Married hunters, such as Verad, had their hair cut
short, and wore the earring of their wife's tent with pride in
their left earlobe. Slade sighed, thinking that one might wish for
a mating, if only to be rid of the braid.

He put his fingers back on the keys.
When he had begun this log, he had filled it with observations of
custom and language. There had been less of that, as odd custom
became that code by which he lived, and the curiously nuanced
language the tongue in which he dreamed. Likewise, he had
previously recorded the weakness which came to him when he denied
himself the supplements and ate only local food. There was no need
to repeat that information for those who ...might... read what he
had been writing.

He moved his fingers on the keypad,
laboriously spelling out his name:

Tol Ven yo'Endoth Clan
Aziel

Scout survey
pilot

Then, as an afterthought -- though
he'd done the transliteration earlier in the report -- he added one
more typed line:

Slade, second named
son of Gineah's tent.

*

Slade stood, Arb on his right hand,
Panilet on his left, before them the man-high blaze of the Choosing
Fire. It was difficult to concentrate in the flame-swept darkness,
for which he blamed the various brews he had been compelled to
swallow during the purifications, as well as the chants and songs
of those of the tribe gathered to witness the Choosings.

Briefly, he closed his eyes, seeing
the flames still, dancing on the inside of his eyelids. The day had
begun at sunrise, with Verad rousing him from Gineah's tent and
hustling him, with neither meat nor berries to break his fast, to
the far side of the encampment, where the hunters of the Sanilithe
gathered, each bachelor under the patronage of a married man. Verad
stood as Slade's sponsor, for which he was grateful.

There were prayers to recite, smokes
to inhale, and strange beverages to drink. There was no water, nor
tea, nor aught to eat. Still, he was not hungry and as the day with
its duties progressed he found himself remarkably calm, if slightly
lightheaded.

At last the waning sun disappeared
behind toothy Nariachen. Slade, bathed and oiled by Verad, shivered
in the sudden coolness, his naked skin pebbling.

"Drink," his friend said, offering yet
another horn cup. Obedient, Slade drank, feeling the liquid take
fire in his blood. He handed the cup back, blinking to clear the
tears from his eyes.

Verad grinned. "That will put the heat
of the hunt into you!"

An
aphrodisiac
? Slade wondered, as Verad
carried the cup away. It seemed likely -- and too late to wonder to
what lusty adventures the dose in the cup, meant for a
broad-shouldered and heavily muscled specimen such as Verad, might
incite his shorter and more slender self.

"Now..." Verad returned, bearing a
strip of soft, pale leather. He showed the length between his
hands. "Up with your arms, brother! I will dress you finer than any
who will stand beside you." He slipped the skin 'round Slade's
hips, wrapping it in an arcane pattern. "I took this one after last
year's Choosing, when Gineah had held you back from the fire,
saying that next year was soon enough." He worked swiftly, making
the leather kilt tight.

"One throw of the spear brought it
down, and I asked my wife for the skin, for I had a brother-gift to
make." A final flourish and he stepped back, pride plain on his
wide face, his grin displaying several broken teeth.

"There, now," he said. "What woman
wouldn't Choose you? That's the question!"

It was certainly, thought
Slade, slowly lowering his arms,
a
question. He looked down at
himself. The kilt was ...brief, and he suspected, from what seemed
a very great distance, that he looked ridiculous.

"Don't be so long-faced," Verad said,
leaning forward and slapping him on the belly. "All muscle and
lithe as a finoret, too! There will be Choosers brawling to have
you!" Another broad grin, then a wave of the hand. "Turn around,
small brother. I have one more gift to give you."

Careful on feet gone slightly silly,
Slade turned, and felt his braid tugged, loosened. Heavy, his hair
unwound across his shoulders -- two long seasons of
growth.

"Like honey," Verad crooned, and Slade
felt a comb slip down the length of his mane. "You will glow in the
firelight, like a star. The eyes of the women will be dazzled.
Doubt not that you will be Chosen. And when you are..." The combing
and Verad's crooning whisper resonated weirdly in his head -- or
perhaps it was that last drink. Slade closed his eyes.

"When you are Chosen," Verad
continued. "Your wife will lead you to her tent. There, she will
reveal a great mystery. A very great mystery." The comb stroked
downward, soft and hypnotic. "In the morning, she will cut away all
of this honey-colored hair and you will return to us as a man and a
husband.

"Your wife will take you to the metal
worker, and she will put the hot wire through your ear and twist it
into the sign of her tent. Then..." The comb whispered down once
more ... stopped. "And then, we will hunt together as full
brothers." He snorted, for a moment the workaday Verad. "And you
will practice with your spear until it is said truly that you never
miss a cast."

Yes, very
likely.
Slade tried to say that, but
it was too much trouble. Behind him, he heard Verad laugh, and felt
a calloused hand on his shoulder.

"To the Fire, brother."

Slade opened his eyes, and glanced
quickly to each side. Arb yet stood at his right hand. Panilet was
gone. Chosen. Despite the heat from the fire, Slade shivered, and
closed his eyes once more.

*

Arb had long been Chosen, and the man
who had stood beyond him.

The Fire was a black bed upon which a
few red embers kept vigil. Slade frowned at them, wondering
laboriously if one of the witnesses beyond the circle would come
and tell him to leave; if he would be brought his spear, and his
tough hunter's leathers, or if he would be cast forth weaponless
and all-but-naked.

His mouth was dry, his head heavy; his
blood still warm from that last draught. Altogether, he thought
painfully, he was in a dangerous and most discouraged state and
ought by rights to simply curl up on the moss by the dying fire and
sleep off the sorrows of the day.

In the heart of the fire, an ember
exploded in a rush of scarlet ash. Slade jerked -- and
froze.

Walking swiftly across the trampled
and vacant moss came a tall reed of a woman, her dark hair braided
with feathers and flowers, her short robe of soft suede, her legs
and feet naked.

Forward she came, until he could see
her face in what remained of the firelight. Wide, pupil-drowned
eyes stared down at him from a bony, long-jawed face. Abruptly, she
checked and looked wildly about, but there were no other hunters
shivering and lachrymose around the dying fire. He was the
last.

As if the realization galvanized her,
she jumped forward and grabbed his wrist. Her fingers were cold;
her grip strong. Without a word, she turned and marched into the
darkness beyond the fire. Slade, perforce, went with her; all but
oblivious to exalting songs and catcalls from the
standers-by.

The sounds and warmth fell away behind
them, and there was dust underfoot, her shape distant in the night,
and her hand, unrelenting, to guide him.

She came at last to a small tent in
the next-but-last circle. Brusquely, she pushed the flap aside and
ducked within, dragging him after, her fingers bruising his
wrist.

Inside, he was at last released, as
his captor -- his wife -- turned to lace the flap. Slade looked
about, finding the interior of the tent as cluttered as Gineah's
had been neat and shipshape. In the center, beneath the air hole,
was the fire, banked for the night, bed unrolled beside
it.

He felt a hand on his arm and turned
to look up into the face of his wife.

In the relative brightness, he saw
that she was younger than he had at first supposed -- scarcely more
than a girl, even by the standards of the Sanilithe -- her forehead
high, and her jaw square. Her lean cheeks had been painted with
stripes of white and yellow and red; those on her left cheek were
smeared. Her eyes were the color of summer moss -- gray-green --
and very wide.

Still, she said nothing to him, merely
reached with hands that trembled to begin working the knot in his
kilt. His manhood leapt, eager, and she gasped, the first sound he
had heard from her, snatching her fingers away.

Gods
, Slade thought, his mind
sharpening slightly within the shrouds of drugs and
exhaustion.
She's
terrified.

"Wait," he said softly, catching her
hands. She flinched, and looked at his face -- at least she did
that -- and did not pull away. "Wait," he said again. "Let us trade
names. I am Slade."

She swallowed, and glanced to one
side. "Arika."

"Arika," he repeated, struggling
toward gentleness. "It is not necessary --"

She pulled her hands free. "This tent
requires a hunter."

"Yes," he said, trying to soothe her
with his voice, trying to ignore the increasing demands of his
body. "Yes, I will hunt for the tent. But it is not necessary to
continue this, now, with both of us tired and
frightened."

She stiffened at that, and awkwardly
reached for his hands, looking sideways into his face.

"I -- there is nothing to fear, inside
my tent," she said, haltingly. "Slade. There is no harm here. I am
-- Tonight, I will teach you a mystery which will, will bond us and
make us stronger for the tent."

A set piece, poorly learned, he
realized, holding her cold fingers. And all honor to her, that her
first thought was to soothe his fears. He smiled,
carefully.

An unmarried hunter of the
Sanilithe was a naive creature. He learned of the mystery of sex on
the night of his Choosing, from the woman who had Chosen to become
his wife. It was that same wife who would later decide how many
children the tent might rejoice in -- and a married hunter was not
at all certain quite how those children came to be. Verad spoke of
seeds, but in the context of a fruit eaten, perhaps from a tree
known only to the
erifu
of women.

Though obviously herself
terrified of the upcoming mystery, Arika would be scandalized to
find that her new and unshorn husband came to her fully tutored.
Still, Slade thought muzzily, he
was
the elder here, and it was
his duty to ease her way, as much as it was hers to ease his
fear.

"First," Arika said, breathlessly,
slipping her hands away. "We must remove these skins..." Her
fingers were at the knot again, somewhat steadier. Slade left her
to it and reached to the laces of her robe. She froze.

"What do you?"

He smiled again, as guileless as he
might, in which endeavor he was no doubt assisted by the
drugs.

"If we must remove the
skins, it will go quicker, if you remove mine and I remove yours."
He affected a sudden shyness, dropping his eyes. "Unless there is
some reason in
erifu
that I should not...?"

She frowned, as if trying
to recall a long-ago and not very well attended lesson. Finally,
she jerked a shoulder -- the Sanilithe negative. "It does not
offend
erifu
. You may continue."

Continue he did, taking care with the
laces while she fumbled with his kilt. He did not wish to reveal
her too soon. Best, if they became naked and equal in the same
moment.

He felt the knot at his hip loosen all
at once, slipped the last of the lacing free and slid his palms
over her shoulders, easing the garment up, just as the kilt fell
unceremoniously to the floor. Softly, he smoothed his hands down
her back, slipping the robe down and off, to pool about her
feet.

She visibly swallowed, her pale eyes
moving down his body in quick glances. Obviously, she hadn't the
least idea what to do now.

Slade stepped forward, lifting a hand
to her hair, stroking it back to reveal an exotic and enticing
little ear. He heard her gasp, but she had heart, did Arika. She
slid her fingers into his hair, silking it back to reveal his ear.
Greatly daring, she ran her finger 'round the edge and he felt his
blood flare as he copied the motion, then stroked the line of her
jaw. She followed his lead, her fingers moving in a long stroke
down the side of his neck.