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Demons whirled around the Low Valley west of the Small Mountain, where Found-in-the-Dell lived with Born-from-the-Wind. Bull Jba the patron of the valley who protected them from the demons. He turned out to be a cruel patron, demanding gifts and sacrifices, forcing them to do disgusting things for him. Found-in-the-Dell was a cruel husband as well, never satisfied, always demanding.
Born-from-the-Wind was miserable, but she did not let herself droop. Her father taught her to always seek the advantage out of any situation, and so, in accordance with that teaching, she tried to make the best out of her position. She taught Found-in-the-Dell to cover his groin, cut his hair, wash his hands and face from dirt, eat plants, and respect the four Big Helpers. She built a thatched hut, weaved baskets to put food in and mats to lie on, always took care of the fire and cooking. Thus Born-from-the-Wind lived for forty years, birthing Found-in-the-Dell six sons and six daughters in the meantime.
Found-in-the-Dell was never thankful, so to thank herself, Born-from-the-Wind built a tiny shrine in which she would pay tribute to her father. When Found-in-the-Dell discovered it, he got furious. “You don’t dare to praise any men except me!” he shouted at her, tearing down the sanctum and throwing away the grassy pieces. Born-from-the-Wind watched and listened silently.
When the world’s motion brought the life of Found-in-the-Dell to its end, he desired to leave the world together with his wife. Born-from-the-Wind did not object. Together they stepped into a hut their sons prepared for them. They lay side by side on the mats that their daughters weaved for them. With a knife their oldest son made for them, they cut their wrists and let their spirits out. Found-in-the-Dell was content; his wife lay silent. Both of them soon died, and their spirits rose from their bodies.
Their children watched from the outside. They saw the spirits of their parents ascend from the hut’s smoke hole. Found-in-the-Dell wanted to take Born-from-the-Wind by her hand, but she refused. Found-in-the-Dell stopped smiling. He tried to force her, but Born-from-the-Wind pushed him aside. She let out a shriek so terrible her children scattered away in terror. She raged, she rampaged, she tore the hut apart and spread the debris around. Born-from-the-Wind turned into the Wind, enlivened by the rage she stored inside while alive.
Found-in-the-Dell fell to his knees. He watched his wife helplessly, and his wife watched him. She grabbed Found-in-the-Dell by his legs and swept him to the north. Laughing at his face while he begged her to pity him, she tossed Found-in-the-Dell right into Dat’s mouth.
Ever since then, the Wind has roamed the plains free of confines and free of pity. It tore down the shrines that her children tried to build for her. It did not spare any other tribe that tried to worship her. It was one, free, unbound and unobliged to anybody, and it remains that way to this day.
***
Twelve children of Found-in-the-Dell and Born-from-the-Wind birthed their own children, who then birthed their own, which then birthed their children as well, and so on. For twelve generations, the descendants of Found-in-the-Dell remained in the Low Valley. They grew into a big tribe; the outsiders called them the Outlanders, but they preferred to call themselves the Bull People.
Bull Jba was their patron all this time. His cruelty had no limits: he demanded food to be brought whenever he needed it, he urged the people to please him whenever he felt like it. He did not hesitate to trample the useless old ones and throw away the excess small ones.
“Jba is merciless and brutal,” the people used to say. “But he is our protector from the curses of the Boar People,” they would then reason. “The curses we did not deserve. We have to put up with him.”
Thus it went on for twelve generations.
There was a man in the twelfth generation whose name was Zalzila-Dajbe. He married Teuskula-Hayri*, the oldest daughter from the neighboring clan, and they were about to have their first children.
On a dark winter day, Teuskula-Hayri was in labor with twins. She gave birth to the first child and was pushing the second one when Jba appeared before her. “Too many of you,” he said. “Too much! Pick one, and the other one I’ll take away. Where do you think the food will come from to feed you all, you pests?” Teuskula-Hayri picked the one who was already born. The second one came out shortly after, and Jba didn’t even wait for the shaman to gnaw the cord—he grabbed it and went away, stomping on the ground.
Chosen-One was the name the surviving infant was given. He grew up fast, pampered by his parents, surrounded by their love and care day and night. Whatever bad there was out there in the world, he was protected from. He grew up spoiled and untrained and he was the first ever kid to turn out like that.
“You’re a failure of a parent!” the Oldest of the Tribe scolded Father Zalzila-Dajbe. “You screwed up your son. You’re the first in the twelve generations to screw up your son! What do you have to say in your defense?” Zalzila-Dajbe said nothing. With a grave face, he stared off to the east as the Oldest of the Tribe continued, “Soon he is to be initiated by the Bull. He is not ready, and Jba will know it. What do you think will happen? You lost one kid, and you will lose another—”
Before the Oldest of the Tribe could finish, Zalzila-Dajbe rose and left. The words of the Oldest of the Tribe cut him like knives. Zalzila-Dajbe was dead set on fixing his parental mistakes, and for that, he fetched from the fields a sturdy stick. He went to his hut and found Chosen-One lazily wallowing on a thatched mat. He said,
“You will do as I say!”
How surprised he was though, when Chosen-One jumped up and looked him in the eye and said,
“I won’t!”
Zalzila-Dajbe swayed his stick, but Chosen-One caught it and took it away. Chosen-One beat Zalzila-Dajbe like a father would beat up a son, only it was the opposite. Later people of the tribe marveled at this fact a lot, and the Oldest of the Tribe himself once commented on it, “One branch of a tree goes ill, and all its fruits rot with it.”
***
The time of Chosen-One’s initiation came—he was sixteen. Every year, six young boys and six girls went through the ceremony of pleasing the Bull, which was the ceremony of initiation for the Bull people. They were to go to the grove of the Shadow and recline with the Bull one by one. They were to do whatever Bull Jba demanded and not to disobey.
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“I won’t go,” Chosen-One said; his mother dropped her needle, his father fumed.
“You will!”
“Don’t tell me what I will do!”
“This is the custom!” Father Zalzila-Dajbe growled. “Either you do it, or you’re not our son.”
It was late evening—the time when good people go to sleep. But that evening good people couldn’t sleep at all: father and son fought again until the relatives took them apart. Women cried, men cursed each other; Chosen-One went away with a split lip, Zalzila-Dajbe went off with a broken father’s pride, and only then the conflict ceased—for the time.
In the morning, the council was held.
“How can you refuse?” the Oldest of the Tribe asked Chosen-One.
“Easy,” Chosen-One responded, chewing on an asparagus stem, his split lip protruding like the lip of a buck munching on grass.
“Don’t chew when the elder talks to you.”
“I’m hungry. I want to eat.”
“You will do what you want after you’re initiated.”
“I don’t want to be initiated by that stupid bull.”
“Then you will be doing what you’re told to.”
“I don’t want to be doing what I’m told to!”
“Then you have no place in the Low Valley.”
Chosen-One stopped chewing and stared at the Oldest of the Tribe who was sitting leaning on a staff, his legs crossed, his face calm.
“Then I leave!”
For some time, the old and the young looked each other in the eye. Both were checking if the other one was serious.
Both were serious.
Mother Teuskula-Hayri rushed in between them. “My son didn’t sleep well. He’s tired, he’s hurt, he cannot think well. Give him time, let him reconsider!”
“I slept fine, Mama!” Chosen-One cried. Teuskula-Hayri turned to him,
“You didn’t! You will reconsider. Take your time and think well. You give us time, Oldest One, don’t you?”
Chosen-One disagreed, but the rest of the people agreed, and the Oldest of the Tribe commanded that it be so.
“Screw you, old old people!” Chosen-One cried and left the council.
“T’ha, what a brat,” the Oldest of the Tribe scoffed.
Eventually, Chosen-One did reconsider, but not in the way anybody wanted him to. Deep at night, when the whole tribe lay asleep, he sneaked out of the camp and ran towards the slopes of the Low Valley. He threw one last glance at the fires flicking in the distance—the fires of his relatives.
“Screw you all, stupid old people!” he shouted and left the valley.
He entered the thickets of commiphora that surrounded the valley. The night was moonless, the thickest stood pitch-black—not a single trait could be seen. Chosen-One blindly crawled through the tall stiff grass and scratchy twigs.
“Come to think of it, I could use a snack,” Chosen-One thought. But it was too late to turn back. Besides, he was lost. Walking around in circles, he finally reached an open space in a depression between two dark boulders. He leaned against the cold stone, catching his breath, thinking of the next direction.
“Ayah, no curses anywhere yet, eh. I knew those stupid old people were lying. They always do!” Chosen-One shouted, and his face produced a slight smile. But then this smile disappeared, for a strange sight faced Chosen-One: a pair of reddish eyes stared at him from a cleft. Chosen-One slowly moved to the left, keeping track of the eyes. He turned his head and saw another pair of eyes. He shrieked and turned around, but saw two pairs of eyes. Two more appeared in the cleft, three pairs watched him from above. Something bit his shins. A ball of something hairy ran down his spine with a croaky shriek. He was surrounded. He was to be tortured. These were the demons, spreading their wings and baring their bloody fangs.
Chosen-One couldn’t think. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t fight, he couldn’t even cry. He closed his eyes... and fell down.
The demons stopped their shrieks. Baffled, they soared down to Chosen-One and crowded around his body. One demon poked his cheek.
“Is he dead?”
Another demon perched on Chosen-One’s forehead.
“He is dead!”
“How come he’s dead so fast?”
“Maybe he’s pretending?”
Several demons bit Chosen-One’s feet—he didn’t move.
“Nope, he’s dead for good.”
“Yeah, he’s dead.
“But where is his spirit?”
“Maybe still inside?”
“Maybe we ain’t noticed it?”
“I think I seen over there.”
The oldest demon jumped onto Chosen-One’s belly, clinging with his claws to his skin. It put its ear to the belly.
“Nope, it’s still inside.”
“So how do we get it?”
“Through the nose!”
“Just open his mouth.”
“Maybe better through the butt?”
“But I seen it over there!”
The youngest demon jumped onto Chosen-One’s belly, its sharp claws permeating his flesh.
“Why do you fools always make it so complicated? Through the belly. We get it directly through the belly!”
And the demons agreed. Their fangs out, their claws scraping Chosen-One from all sides, they were ready to feast. Suddenly—Chosen-One rose and pointed south,
“My spirit!” he screamed. “Don’t leave me, my spirit. Come back, my spirit. It’s over there!”
Chosen-One fell back down—dead again. The demons stared to the south.
“I told you I seen it over there!”
The oldest demon soared up into the blackness.
“All after the spirit of the cursed one! All claws after the belly of the Bull slave!”
“Get him, boys!’
The swarm of deadly creatures buzzed through the air to the south, their squeaking resounding through the groves. They rushed fiercely through the vegetation, tearing it apart, raising dust and rocks, scaring everything alive. But the oldest demon quickly lost his speed. Silently, he fell behind and perched on a branch, sullenly glaring back. The swarm returned and surrounded him.
“What is up, Elder?”
“What do you think, Elder?”
“We’ll miss him, Elder!”
The Elder glanced around at his brother demons.
“Idiots. What kind of deadman laments for his spirit like he’s alive?” The demons stared at their Elder. Then they stared at each other. “Back. All back. Get the rascal!”
The swarm blared. It tore through the thickets, breaking whatever was on its way into splinters. The demons flew into the depression, but Chosen-One wasn’t there anymore.
Thus Chosen-One was the first man to escape the demons.
And the demon who shouted that he saw Chosen One’s spirit was the first one to be eaten by his brothers for his mistake.
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* - /zalziˌla-dadʒˈbɛ/ - The Twelveth Son;
/tɛuskuˌla-hajˈri/ - The Oldest Daughter