[https://i.imgur.com/q5Y2QuV.jpg]
Winter ended, and the cold and dusty northern wind changed to the hot and wet southern one. The sky in the south darkened with the rain clouds every day. Storms swept across the region and brought plenty of rain. Both banks of the River were covered in greenery and flowers, and the River itself became so full that our island was divided into two narrow strips of land squeezed between the glittering waters.
Ironically, it was at that same time that the population of the camp increased drastically as loads of guests from up and down the River and even from the plains began arriving. The place became crowded. On the women’s side, there were constant scandals, on the men’s side—unending brawls between the newcomers and the local youth. Rolls of skins, linens, bones, exotic timber, and other gifts and goods lay everywhere in heaps, making it impossible to walk around the camp in straight lines. Children ran around screaming, dogs barked, gulls shouted while circling above the fishers’ reed boats, and the fishermen themselves did not spare curses while driving off the brazen birds.
To escape this mess, Hilla-Tupa and a group of his clanmates decided to move upstream to the place of this year’s get-together. The festivity itself was yet a moon ahead, so the island we camped on was empty save for an elderly woman that lived in a raawu on the island’s easternmost tip and a bunch of crocodiles that rested on its northern shore.
The woman had a crooked nose and long gray hair woven in multiple braids the Surian style. Despite her age, she was very lively. She helped us fetch the reeds, build the reed houses, and then even went herself to catch us some fish. Her name was Ra-Su (Red-Moon)
“Like that girl from the story?” I asked her while standing knee-deep beside her with a basket in my hands. She responded with an almost girlish chuckle and stabbed the water with her harpoon.
“Many boys and girls are born under the red moon every year,” she said, throwing a small tilapia* in my basket.
With the fish collected, we returned to the raawu and prepared a little supper. She was an interesting woman, and I found myself very engaged in conversation with her. She told some legends of hers; I told her the stories of mine; we discussed the meanings of them and why they differed.
“I wonder why it is in these stories that everybody who goes away never returns,” I said once amidst our conversation.
Ra-Su timidly adjusted her cloak and said,
“I knew one who returned from the north.”
I was greatly intrigued by this.
“From the north?”
“From the very depth of the desert.”
I demanded that she tell me about it, and this was what she narrated.
***
There is a place far in the northern desert which is called the Earth’s Eye. It is home to Dot’s brother, Tafawi. Tafawi is an artisan who boils stones in a big pot full of spiders’ blood until those stones become blue and then scatters them around the Earth’s Eye. Those blue stones are powerful artifacts, and shamans from all over the plains value them very much.
These stones are hard to fetch. Aside from the fact that one needs to traverse the vast and deadly desert to reach the Earth’s Eye, one also has to endure Tafawi’s tricks and then pass Dot’s traps on the way back. Very few men dare to venture on such a trip and even fewer survive it. But those who manage to bring back the blue stones bring with them the blessing of the desert.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
The man’s name was Hata-Gode-ok** (Protected-by-the-Antelope). He lived in the clan of Ra-Su’s little sister’s husband and was one of those who went to the Earth’s Eye. He did it not once and not twice, but three times. He never brought back anything but the hot sand on his heels, but he never stopped. Every year, just around the time of the spring equinox when the River’s cherries blossom, he stubbornly packed his gear and went out to the north. Every year at the time of get-together, he returned, and each year he was more and more different upon returning.
When the time of his fourth trip came, his wife and his kids, and the whole of his clan tried to dissuade him. Hata-Gode-ok dismissed everything and just went on. That year, he did not return at the time of the get-together, nor later at the time of the sun games. He did not return that year, or the next year, nor the year after that. His family went to the clan’s shaman and asked him to perform the ritual of calling onto the man’s guardian—so that the guardian spirit could take care of the dead and let Raven and Lark attend to his spirits. His wife married a man from the lower clan, his kids went to the upper clans. All seemed to be over when suddenly, he returned.
It was a winter's day. A guest appeared on the northern shore, waded through the River’s water, and entered his clan’s winter camp. The people did not recognize him at first and thought him a strayed stone seeker. They asked his name, but he did not respond. They offered him food, but he did not take it. He went to an old apricot tree where the man used to put the reed house in previous years.
“What happened to the people who used to put their house here every year?” the man asked. The people told him that the head of the family went to the north and did not return, his wife married a man from the lower clans, and the kids went upstream. The man did not say a word anymore and just sat there without looking up.
In the meantime, the people little by little began to understand. Though the guest did not look like their missing fellow—Hata-Gode-ok was young and vigorous, with curly hair and brown skin, whereas the guest was stooping, old, bald, and with pitch black skin unlike anybody at the River—he did have a wart on his neck, just like Hata-Gode-ok did. The scar on his left cheek was like that of Hata-Gode-ok’s. The phalanx on his right pinky was missing just like it was with their fellow.
“Hata-Gode-ok!” a woman called out to him, and the guest winced and stared at her.
“Yes, I know that name,” the guest said. “There was a stone seeker who went too far. He grabbed my stones and he grabbed too many. He was happy—way too happy. When he ventured back, I appeared in front of him. ‘Drop half of what you took,’ I told him, but he did not listen. The filthy cat dared to toss one stone at me—it burned and hindered me, and he escaped. Nasty little rascal. To toy with me like this! I muddied his tracks and led him not south but north, not to the River, but further into the sands—all the way to the northern Payahas. Wouldn’t you know it though, he dared to fight them as well! One of the Payahas flew to me complaining: ‘Why did you allow that scoundrel to us?’ What was there for me to do? I dealt with him myself.” The guest then put his hand on the stomach and fondly patted it. “He was tasty. Where do you say his wife went?”
The people winced back, stricken. Women grabbed their children and fled to their houses.
“What are you, evil creature?” the men shouted, but the guest only grinned. The men ran for their weapons; when they returned, the trickster spirit in the form of their fellow was not there but stood on a knoll nearby.
“Don’t worry so much!” he said. “I’m just carrying a stone for her. After all, her husband did acquire half of them rightfully.”
Unwilling to listen to the mumblings of a trickster, the men launched their spears and arrows. Their projectiles hit the place where the creature stood but did it no harm. It wasn’t hurt; it didn’t cry; it didn’t bleed; it didn’t even laugh—it just timidly smiled and departed from the camp, watched by the perplexed men.
The people did not touch the blue stone that the guest left. They called up a shaman who performed special rituals to cleanse the place and carried the stone away, and they sent envoys to Hata-Gode-ok’s wife to warn her of the danger. The strange man did not approach her, however, neither ever visited the clan again. It is said that he went to the River Iz, in the west, and still lives there somewhere.
***
As Ra-Su finished her story, I found myself fighting a strange mix of two feelings: fear and interest.
“You say he lives there to this day,” I said. “Does it mean I can find him?”
“Well, if he lives there, then you can find him. Why?” She looked at me with a glance of a worried grandma.
“I have several questions for him.”
“Tchu!” she cried, waving her hand near my face. “What question can there be to a trickster? Even if you’re looking for lies, you can’t trust this kin. You, young man, shouldn’t spend your time on this. Talk to good people. Gather their good stories. Don’t gather lies of liars.”
I pretended to heed the old woman’s final words. Deep inside, however, I knew my next destination.
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Footnotes:
* - Species of fish; IRL can be found in African rivers.
** - /haˌta-godɛ-ˈok/