“Yet if we can’t go back until the rain comes—”
“That’s the problem,” Haven agreed. “We have to stay here. But at what cost to our identity?”
“We’ve always been close as a family,” Rebel said. “And as a culture. Our family isn’t breaking up.”
“But we are in an alien culture—and liking it too well.”
“I’ve got confidence in us.”
“I hope you’re right. I don’t want the children to grow up as Traders.”
They stayed. The passage grave wasn’t finished, but Craft had made a good impression with his construction expertise, and was transferred to the Trader shipbuilding enterprise. The Traders had come from the sea, and though they had been long settled on land, they had never forgotten their heritage. Trading vessels still came into port regularly, but the ships were getting old and unsound, and more needed to be built.
Soon Hero and Harbinger joined Craft, for there was plenty of moving and assembling to do. None of them had had prior experience with watercraft of this size, big enough to hold twenty to fifty men, and were interested. Then the women brought food to them at the building dock, and the family was together again, in its fashion. It was good work for them all.
Another appealing girl appeared, and Rebel lost her position as mistress. But by then the family was well established on its merits, and was able to retain its lodging and position. Rebel faded gracefully from Bub’s presence, saying nothing. He ignored her, not interfering; her silence bought his silence, and it was convenient for them both.
But the children were growing, and Tour was getting prettier. They tried to keep her out of sight, because they never knew when one of her small fits would come upon her. Haven worried that the girl’s dawning beauty or her malady would get her into trouble. They garbed her in masculine fashion, not to conceal her nature but simply to mask her appeal. That was, however, a temporary expedient. It was time to return to the farm—but they couldn’t. Not until the drought ended.
They stayed the second winter, and it continued well. Keeper, unable to overcome the relentless drought, finally had to join them among the Traders. Now they were all together again. But what of their farm?
In the spring of the third year, the rains returned. They could go home!
But the men now had excellent positions, and were loath to give them up for the risky nature of farming. Rains, like droughts, were unpredictable; suppose they returned to the farm, and the drought returned? It seemed better to remain here, at least as long as things were going so well.
“But don’t you see,” Haven argued. “We are becoming Traders! We are losing our Farming traditions.”
They listened, and were swayed. They valued their Farming culture, and recognized the threat to it. They decided to make an application to the chief to return home.
That meant talking to Bub, who represented the chief in matters of immigration and emigration. That in turn meant that Rebel would make their case, for she retained an amicable relationship with the man. This should be routine.
When Haven and Crenelle returned from their day’s labors, they found Rebel in the suite. She was not smiling. Something was wrong.
“We can’t go,” she said.
“They value the men’s work too much?” Haven asked, with a sick fear that that was not the reason.
“The chief went after the wrong girl-child,” Rebel said grimly. “This one rejected him—and her family has power. But they will let it be, if he swears never to touch another child.”
“But what has that to do with us?” Crenelle asked.
“The chief must take a grown woman as his next mistress. The queen is as much concerned with scandal as anyone; she prefers him to have an adult mistress, rather than a child. Bub recommended me. It is a position of much favor.”
“But you can’t accept,” Haven said. “We wouldn’t be able to go home!”
“And the chief is a toad,” Crenelle said.
“I can’t decline.”
“We could simply leave,” Haven said. “Immediately.”
“No.”
“I know the way Bub works,” Crenelle said. “What is his threat?”
“You won’t like this.”
Crenelle paled. “Tour?”
“If I do not cooperate, Bub will advise the chief of her availability. If the chief suffers the price of scandal, he will have no restraint, and will take her openly. She will become hostage to our cooperation, and we will not be allowed to leave.”
“Maybe if Bub realized her condition,” Haven said, “that would make her unattractive.”
“He knows her condition. He is more observant than I realized. He saved the information until such time as it should become useful to him. If he tells the chief, she will be executed as spirit-haunted.”
“Either way, my child loses,” Crenelle said grimly.
“Unless I intercept the chief,” Rebel said. “I have to do it.”
“You have to do it,” Haven agreed reluctantly.
“I will do it. But you will have to help make me look young. Very young.”
They understood. They worked on her hair, and on her mannerisms, so that she could become innocently flirty in the way of a child. She had to make an impression on the chief that would satisfy him, and therefore satisfy Bub. In order to protect Tour, and their family. It was the only way.
Haven knew Rebel would succeed. But it did mean that they would not be able to return to the farm. Not this year. Their decision had been made for them, ironically. In time this business with the chief would pass, and they would be free. But would they still decide to leave? It had been a close decision this time, and might go the other way a year or more hence. And what would that mean for the future of the family? How could they retain their culture in the face of the blandishments to which they would be subject by the favor of the chief? Haven dreaded the answer.
As it turned out, things changed. The Megalithic culture, here referred to as the Traders, had dominated this region, and indeed, western coastal Europe, for some one thousand, seven hundred years. But their absorption of these particular immigrants, called the Farmers, resulted in their gradual dominance by the culture of the Farmers, which was more enduring than their own. For the Farmers defended their way of life and their cultural identity with a remarkable persistence. They remained in this section of Europe, sometimes expanding, sometimes driven back, but always themselves, increasingly distinct from those around them. Indeed, they remain there today. They are known as the Basques.
10
LANGUAGE
Erectus does not seem to have reached Australia, though there are patterns of holes drilled in stone that seem to predate the arrival of modern mankind. Pending the solution to that mystery, the human presence on the continent seems to date from about 50,000 years ago. People soon spread all across the region, though resources in the interior were sparse.
One region that could have supported a human population in the central desert is today known as Alice Springs, where a mountain range meets a lake almost in the center of the continent. This makes it an edge zone, where there is a greater variety of species than exist in normal zones. The red gum tree supports many kinds of insects, birds, and mammals, and kangaroos graze in the fields. The time in one sense is about two thousand years ago: the year zero. In another sense—
Rebel woke to a headache. She opened her eyes, and found the scene blurry. She felt her head, and her hand came away damp. She blinked to clear her vision, and saw that her fingers were coated with brownish red. Blood—from her head.
It was too much to assimilate at the moment. She relaxed, closed her eyes, and sank back into unconsciousness.
She found herself in Dreamtime. This was a special state of being. Time separated into four phases: the future, the present, the past within living memory, and the distant past. At the far end of the distant past was the Dreamtime. It was the primordial period, when the ancestors traveled across the wo
rld, shaping the landscape as they went. The time before the great flood that washed away the previous landscape.
Dreamtime was also a state of being that extended across the other phases, so that sometimes people could reach it, through ritual or magic, and briefly become their ancestors. They could thus liberate their powers for a while, and re create the great journeys of their fore-bears. The logic of Dreamtime was not that of the normal world. There were no paradoxes or confusions there. Great distances could be covered in minutes, or a short walk might require many hours.
So Rebel walked the strange yet somehow familiar landscape, intrigued by its oddities. It was too bad that the flood had wiped it out, yet that had made possible the terrain that she lived in. She pondered the several explanations for that awful flood. Some said that ancestral heroes known as the Wandjina had caused the flood, then sent each to their own countries in the new landscape. Others believed that a blind old woman named Mudunkala had emerged from the ground carrying three infants. Maybe she had not impressed others, but as she walked across the barren wastes to the islands, water had bubbled up from her tracks, so voluminously that it raised the level of the sea itself and separated one land from another. But perhaps the most authoritative version was that the rainbow, in the form of a great serpent, made the flood, so that it would have a compatible place to sleep. That serpent was believed to exist still, hiding in the deepest pools. Woe to anyone who disturbed it!
Rebel loved it here, but she could not stay. Her own realm was drawing her back. Reluctantly she let herself be hauled to the present. She felt the water of the flood flowing from her head as she passed through it to reach her own phase.
This time when she woke, Haven was there, sponging off her head. Rebel was relieved to see her; Haven was very good at taking care of children and ill people. In Dreamtime Rebel might be gloriously healthy, but in the present she was an invalid. She opened her mouth to speak—but was unable to put together the words. They simply wouldn’t formulate.
Haven spoke. It was a liquid stream of sound, completely unintelligible.
Had she returned to her own realm? It seemed real, especially in its discomfort, but this was supernatural.
Rebel tried again to speak, but somehow the words were like stones she couldn’t grasp. They slipped away before she could organize them. This was frustrating, but again it was too much to handle immediately. She closed her eyes and faded out.
Each human band had its own wandjina, or ancestral spirit, represented by its totem animal. Some wandjina were very powerful. There was Biljara the Eaglehawk, and Wagu the Crow. They were the ones who had initiated the matrimonial laws, outlawing a man’s marriage to his sister, and establishing the degrees of kinship in which marriage was proper. The community was divided into two moieties associated with the participants of the ancestral marriage, and thereafter individuals were allowed to marry only into the opposite moiety. Children could belong to either, depending on local custom.
But Eaglehawk and Crow were not necessarily on friendly terms. Sometimes Crow tried to trick Eaglehawk, or work other mischief. Once Crow killed Eaglehawk’s son and tried to blame someone else, just as a joke. But Eaglehawk lacked a sufficient sense of humor, and discovered the truth, and buried Crow with the body.
But before Rebel could locate one of those spirits and plead for some insight into her situation, she was summoned back to her own realm. This was frustrating, but could not be avoided.
The third time she woke, her headache had retreated somewhat, and she seemed to be clean. Haven had made her comfortable. At the moment she was alone, so she tried to speak to herself. The words still wouldn’t come. It was as though she had no language.
Haven entered the chamber. Rebel saw now that it was actually a cave. In fact she recognized it; it was one the two of them had discovered years ago, and kept secret. A retreat that they could go to, that no one else knew about. Haven must have brought her here to mend.
But how had she gotten this way? She couldn’t remember. So she tried to ask her sister—and the words evaporated before she could catch them.
Haven spoke again, and again it was gibberish.
Rebel made another effort to speak, trying to force the words out. But all that happened was a frustrated groan.
Haven said something, and by the intonation it was a question. Rebel spread her hands to show her confusion.
Haven asked another question. Rebel put on a blank look.
Haven looked at her with dawning astonishment. “?” she asked.
Rebel shrugged. She could hear her sister perfectly well, but couldn’t understand her. She was pretty sure Haven wasn’t speaking a foreign language; how could she have so suddenly learned it? So it had to be Rebel herself who couldn’t understand it—or speak it. She had lost her language.
Slowly comprehension came to Haven’s face. “!” she said.
Rebel nodded. She was pretty sure her sister had come to the same conclusion.
Haven thought for a moment, then backed off, put her hand to the ground, and smoothed a section of the dirt. Then she took her forefinger and drew a circle. She drew another, smaller, beside it. Then she made a series of lines, extending from the large circle and connecting it to the small one.
It was a simple figure of a human being, with sticklike arms and legs and a funny face. Rebel smiled, recognizing its nature. This she could understand.
Then Haven added a little line between the legs. A penis, making the figure male. Rebel nodded. It was a relief to achieve some sort of communication at last.
Then Haven added wavy lines, signaling hair, and a heavy line across that hair. All at once Rebel recognized the man: the one who had been clubbed on the head during a fight. She couldn’t find his name, but remembered how he had been rather crazy for some time after that. Apparently the knock to the head had addled his common sense. The injury healed soon enough, but it took far longer for his personality to return to normal.
Then Rebel caught on to Haven’s purpose in drawing the figure. Yes, this had happened to her! She had been hit on the head—she couldn’t remember it, but her blood-matted hair was proof of it—and it must have addled her sense too. Or at least her language.
She touched the figure, and nodded, touching her own head. She was crazy because of the injury.
Haven nodded. She formed her right hand into a loose fist and raised it to her face, as if drinking from a cup. She raised an eyebrow in query.
Yes, Rebel was thirsty. So she made a similar fist and drank from it.
Haven went to the side of the cave and picked up a closed gourd. She poured it into a leaf cup, and brought the cup to Rebel. Rebel drank thirstily, gulping it down immediately. Haven filled it again, and this time Rebel drank more slowly.
Haven put her fingers to her mouth, as if conveying something here. She bit at an invisible fruit, and glanced at Rebel.
Rebel nodded. She was hungry. Haven went to the side of the cave, and opened a hide bag. She brought out a ripe fruit and brought it to Rebel. Rebel took it and bit into it, satisfying her hunger.
Then she needed to urinate. She gestured to the appropriate section of her body, and Haven nodded. Haven helped her stand and supported her while she wavered dizzily, waiting for the resurgent headache to fade. Then they went out of the cave, into the bright light beyond, and to the bushes nearby.
That was enough; she was tired. Rebel returned to her bed and lay down, and slept. She was feeling somewhat better physically, and much better emotionally, because she had established communication with Haven. Now she understood what had happened to her, and that gave her direction. She needed to discover who had done it, and why. The spirits of Dreamtime would know, if they cared to tell. But this could be complicated.
There were not just primordial ancestors of human clans in Dreamtime. There were also ancestral plants and animals, as well as sacred rocks, wells, and ritual areas of great power. Hostile or trickster spirits might also be present, as they we
re in the real world. Such spirits might empty a fine bees’ nest of its honey just before a person could harvest it, or inflict some awful disease or curse, or kill a person, ignore her, or teach her a new way to dance or hunt. Everything depended on whether the spirit was beneficial or evil or merely capricious, and on how it was approached, or perhaps on what mood it was in at the moment. A person could approach a spirit the wrong way simply by not recognizing it, and the spirits could masquerade as anything, so it could be tricky indeed. Rebel would be better off to approach none of them, than to accost one the wrong way.
She paused to consider, as this was best done before she encountered a spirit. She believed those of Dreamtime were similar to those of the real world, so that should be a guide. In the real world, the Wurulu-Wurulu stole honey by using bottlebrush flowers tied to sticks to empty the nest. They also caused mischief by putting their own paintings over those left by ancestral heroes. So probably she didn’t want to approach one of them. There were the Argula, who were associated with evil sorcery. They painted distorted human figures in rock shelters and sang evil curses into them. That wouldn’t do either. Then there were the graceful Mimi, who lived in cracks on cliff faces, and left their own paintings, which were said to predate the flood. They were not inimical, but could inflict sickness or curses if they were angered or suddenly surprised. Sometimes folk found a wallaby that seemed tame; that made it likely to be a pet of a Mimi, so it was left alone rather than hunted. That was perhaps the best prospect. Then there were the Namorodo, associated with shooting stars, so thin that they were no more than skin and bone held together by sinew. They traveled at night, flying through the air with a swishing sound and killing with their long claws. If a dead person’s spirit was captured by a Namorodo, it could not rejoin the wandering totemic ancestors, but became instead a malevolent spirit wandering through the brush.
So she should seek a Mimi, hoping not to surprise it. Then, if she pleaded prettily enough, it might give her the information she wanted. She set out, moving through Dreamtime at mysteriously variable speed, sometimes flying without wings, sometimes walking without moving her feet. It wasn’t really by her volition; the dream terrain took her where it would, how it would.