Chapter 6
– Kenz’ox –
I sit back down and lift Aker’iz onto my lap. “She has lost her friend. And I think many things have changed for her. We will let her grieve in peace. Some of us sometimes make noises like a diving irox, you know. Can you guess who?”
The baby reaches up with chubby fingers and whimpers, her blue eyes as clear as a calmly running creek.
I lean down so she can examine my face with her hands. “You guess it’s me? Well, perhaps—ow! See, you have claws like an irox, too. We may have to do something about that.”
I lean away from the sharp little fingernails that scratched my cheek.
The little face contracts in a way that I know very well, but I don’t want her to scream right now—Dorie clearly needs some quiet and time to herself. Any warrior who’s lost a friend knows the feeling.
I stand up and hold Aker’iz in front of me while I walk around the little clearing.
“We have had some big changes ourselves, you and I,” I say softly, knowing that the baby can’t understand me.
But I like talking to her. “And we owe Dorie a lot. She saved both our lives last night. I will tell you about it later. In a few years, when you can understand the skill it took. It was unbelievable.”
I make sure to keep moving, the way Aker’iz prefers.
“Notice the tracks. There were several women here. And one strange warrior who seems to have climbed trees easily. He must have cut down these trees that lie around us. It’s a wall, you see.
He wanted to keep the Bigs and Smalls away.
There are also traps on the outside. They are easy for us to spot, but maybe not for a curious Big. ”
Some of those women left this place, this safest spot in the jungle. Why would they do that? It’s all puzzling, but I will ask Dorie later, when her grief has abated somewhat.
It’s a well-ordered little spot. There is a vat for boiling oil from Bigs to fuel lamps.
A rack for treating the skin from Bigs. A pottery wheel and a small kiln for pottery.
A food store underground and two piles of firewood, a well-made canopy that can be put over the campfire, tools and spears, and all the things that a small village needs.
The only thing I can’t see is a source of fresh water, but I keep hearing the roar in the distance, so there is clearly a great amount of water nearby.
“Let’s look at the lake that’s not a lake,” I tell Aker’iz as I walk through the last patch of dense jungle that the roar comes from.
When I see it, all I can say is, “Oh…”
If it’s a lake, it must be the biggest one on Xren. I can’t even see the other side. It’s as if the land just stops. A long beach stretches away on each side, and I can’t see where it ends.
Big waves crash lazily onto the beach from far away, making that constant roar I thought might be a waterfall. Yes, this should be enough water for any tribe.
“What do you think?” I ask Aker’iz. “Have we reached the end of the world?”
She complains, kicks her legs, and waves her arms, telling me to keep walking.
We go all the way down to the edge of the water.
There’s a lot of white foam here, as well as heaps of wood that must have drifted in from other parts of the lake.
A cool breeze plays with the fine hairs on Aker’iz’s head.
“This is nice. Our new home is better than our old one. And here, nobody wants us dead.”
I walk slowly along the beach. It’s the end of my mission to find a safe place for Aker’iz. Now we have to make our lives here. In a strange, alien ship, by the side of a lake that indeed is not a lake, away from the old tribe.
“We will never see them again,” I say into the breeze.
“None of them. Why did they try to stop me? Cerep’oz and Hart’ox and Vrep’ix—they should have known better!
You don’t ambush a tribesman! If they wanted to stop me, they should have fought me in honest combat!
Then they would have lived. I wouldn’t have had to kill them.
But they left me no choice!” My fists tighten at the memory of that night.
Aker’iz notices my darkening mood and gives off a whimper.
“You’re right,” I tell her. “We don’t need them. We have a home now. There’s a meaning to this. The Ancestors led us to this place for a reason. And Dorie… she must have been sent by them as well. Somehow.”
Aker’iz babbles something, and I turn around to go back to the ship.
Something catches my attention, and I squat down to examine the sand.
The tracks are faint but clear enough. And it makes sense.
But it’s bad news, and that’s not what we need right now.
“Let’s not tell Dorie about this. Not a word, Aker’iz. ”
I walk straight into the jungle and make a wide arc until I’m back at the ship, reaching it from the other side. I stop right behind the barricade.
Dorie is sitting on a rock, working with clay on her pottery wheel. She’s so small and fragile! And yet she clearly is the master of that patch of land. She can kill droks and befriend grikets, so she clearly deals with the jungle much better than I would have guessed from the way she looks.
The sight of her moves something in me I can’t name.
It’s as if my blood remembers her kind while my mind doesn’t.
Her shape is very strange. She’s round and smooth, with protrusions in the most interesting places.
It should feel wrong, but it’s the most right thing I’ve ever seen.
What might she look like under that garment?
The very thought sends heat to my midsection.
I know what kind of bodies adult women have.
The shaman showed me and the other boys many years ago.
He used a wooden figure to show the differences.
We were all eager to examine that doll. Some boys even asked to borrow it after the lecture.
But the shaman would not allow it, so they made one of their own that was passed around until the shaman discovered it and threw it on the fire.
My smile at the memory dies the moment it grazes my lips. I will never see any of my friends again.
Aker’iz makes a noise, and Dorie looks up. Her eyes find mine, and for a heartbeat, neither of us moves. The air feels thick, like before a storm.
She quickly looks down.
I climb over the barricade and go over to her.
“I make a mug for Aker’iz,” she says when I approach. “Before is done, she use mine.” She rinses clay off her hands and holds out a thick-rimmed mug with a little sliver of fresh wood in it.
“You’ll need it yourself,” I point out. “Aker’iz is fine. She doesn’t need a mug this nice. She’s likely to break it on a rock the first chance she gets.”
“I have other mug for me,” Dorie says as she keeps working. “I made a spoon for her, too.”
I take out the little sliver of wood. Indeed, it is a spoon—the smallest I’ve ever seen. Baby-size, in fact.
I show it to the girl. “Aker’iz, Dorie has made this for you. It is a very fine spoon. Now say thank you.”
Aker’iz waves her arms and makes a frustrated noise.
“Her manners are not the best,” I admit. “But thank you for the mug and the spoon. We will make use of both.”
Dorie gives me a quick smile and keeps working, smoothing out the indentations in the clay. “You have see the lake?”
I force myself to look at the clay instead of her hands, so small, quick, and sure. I go over to the campfire and open the pot with Aker’iz’s food. “We saw it. It’s both a lake and not, as you said. I have heard of these things. I think they’re called ‘oceans’.”
“Ocean,” she says. “That was word. Ocean.”
“It’s the first ocean Aker’iz has seen,” I tell her. “She was very impressed.”
“And you?”
I scoop up some of the thick fruit mix and fill the mug. “I was less impressed. More worried. What kind of Bigs might live in that?”
She sends me a glance. “That my worry, too.”
I use the spoon to feed the baby, spending a great part of the time getting her to open her mouth. Most of the fruit ends up on the ground, but it’s only our twelfth attempt, and it’s a great improvement over last time.
Dorie gets up and places the new clay mug on a rock where there are traces of previous items having been dried. “Ready for fire tomorrow.”
“It is very fine,” I tell her. In truth, it’s one of the most crooked and uneven clay items I’ve seen, but my tribe has many good potters, and their clay is likely much better than Dorie’s.
She stands up and looks around cautiously. Her gaze snags on my sword.
“If you have iron, I can make a blade for you,” I tell her. “If you don’t have it, I will find some. You plainly are a master of the spear, but a shorter weapon will often be useful.”
“I have no iron. Spear is good. And I have knife.” She shows me a tiny little blade that would be more suitable for Aker’iz than an adult woman. “If want to wash, can use ocean. But not drink water. Is very bad.”
I frown. “The water is bad? Dirty?”
“Yes, dirty. But is also… other. I forget the name. I show you.” She grabs a couple of pots and starts towards the beach.
I wrap all Aker’iz’s dirty leather sheets into one bundle, take the baby into my arms, and follow Dorie.
She walks as if unaware of her own softness, each step heavy with grace.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be watching. I tell myself it’s curiosity, but my body knows better.
Her hips are so wide that they make her gait just a bit awkward, but it somehow looks immensely charming and attractive.
There’s an immediate swelling at my crotch.
The breeze blows her scent towards me, sweet and different. Her hair is dense, fine, and smooth. She’s made for another world, that’s for sure. She has no place in the jungle, with its decay and deadly dangers. She’s far too good for all this.
For a moment I’m unsure. Is she the Woman?
The one the shaman told us about and prepared us for with his doll?
He told us all we were to do with her. But I always imagined the Woman as different than Dorie, taller and more sure of herself.
After all, she would be sent by the Ancestors to be the Mother of Xren.
No, it can’t be that. Dorie is not from here at all.
And the Envoy did say that the women on Xren now are not the Woman, and that She doesn’t exist and never will.
But then, the Envoy said so many things that made me dizzy. Not all of them are true, I’m sure.
We walk all the way down to the foamy line where the last of the waves sink into the sand.
Dorie scoops water up in her hand, takes a small sip, and makes a face. “Not remember name of this.” She shakes the water from her hand and opens her arms. “You try. I hold baby.”
I stiffen. Only I have held Aker’iz since we left the village. And I was so sure that Dorie didn’t want anything to do with her.
I control myself. “Thank you. Watch out for her nails. They’re getting sharp.” I carefully hand the baby over. Dorie holds her askew, high on her chest in a way that looks natural. Aker’iz squirms but doesn’t protest much, just studies Dorie from close up.
I bend down and taste the water. “Salty. Very salty. But that’s good! Salt makes food taste better. We barely had any salt in our village.”
“Salt,” Dorie repeats. “Here have all salt you need. You like salt too, Aker’iz?” She bounces the girl in her arms, looking like she’s never done anything else.
“We shall soon find out,” I state, happy to see Dorie in a better mood. “Now we’ll put salt in all our food. But you said we can’t drink this?”
“Too many salt,” Dorie explains. “Very too many salt. It kill you.”
“Too much salt,” I repeat thoughtfully. “I would never have thought it possible to have too much of it. But I’ll take a chance on cleaning these things.” I unpack the dirty sheets and drop them all to the sand.
Aker’iz starts to squirm and whimper.
“She likes to keep moving,” I tell Dorie. “She gets bored easily.”
They start walking along the beach, and I hear Dorie talking softly to the baby in her alien language.
I stare after them. They seem to be friends already. I shrug and start the disagreeable task of cleaning the dirty leather sheets.
When I’m done, I lay them all out to dry on the sand as Dorie and Aker’iz return from their short walk.
“How old she?” Dorie asks as she hands her back.
“Almost five moons,” I tell her. “She’s small for her age, I think. But perhaps girls are just smaller.”
“Perhaps. Finish washing?”
“I don’t think this will ever finish,” I admit, looking at the leather sheets. “She uses a lot of those things.”
Dorie’s lips form a little smile. “They all do.”
I hadn’t noticed how perfectly shaped her lips are. Her face is different from mine and from Aker’iz’s. But there’s an extra softness there, like there is all over her. “Yes.”
For a moment we stay like that, just looking at each other. Her eyes have a darkness to them that I’ve never seen in any man or any Big or Small. And yet they’re clear, big and luminous.
Dorie looks away. “This you can try. If wish to clean Aker’iz, too.” She reaches out with the pot. “Makes clean. Not from here, but from the Borok tribe. Far away.”
“Thank you.” As I accept the pot, my fingers stroke along hers and I notice how cool they are. And yet the touch burns. I wonder if she feels it too.
Again we stand still for a moment, looking at each other, before she pulls her hand back.
She turns around and walks back towards her home. The griket comes bouncing, and for a moment I think it will attack her. But it simply jumps into her arms, curls its tail around her leg, and jumps back down, staring at me as Dorie keeps walking.
I watch her until the jungle swallows her shape. The salty wind still clings to my skin. It feels like her touch.