Island of Fire (The Age of Bronze) (48 page)

“But, Karména,” Túrem objected, still smiling. “Are you sure that the gods will not be offended if we use their tent for such a profane purpose?”

The woman calmly shook her head. “Why should they? Are they not now in a fine, wooden house? Have we not squared the foundation with due ceremony and dug the pit for the offerings? Besides, the guest-host relationship is holy, too, in its own way.”

The white-haired Lárez waited a moment, staring at Túrem. When the young man did not move, the headman snapped at him, “What are you waiting for, boys? Did you not hear the woman? Raise the tent!”

“Yes, Lárez,” the younger men chorused all at once, a little embarrassed that he had to prod them.

A great covering of black felt greeted the newcomers when they awoke at the onset of night. Not a few were startled to see the schematic designs worked into the brightly dyed wool stretched above them. It was even more disconcerting to find that the man of highest rank had waited impatiently until long after their arrival to make himself known to them. But Odushéyu, still snoring loudly enough to frighten the littlest children, missed the funeral completely, along with his removal from office.

The village
flámen
guided the dead souls on their unfamiliar journey from the Bull Country to Préswa’s realm and attempted to draw Ainyáh’s back from whatever distant shores so he could be guided to those of the Stuks. As had Ip’igéneya and T’éti before her, she began by chanting, until she entered a trance. She ran, she fought, she cried out with every bit of her strength. When the divine spirit possessed her, at length, she called out the visions that appeared to her, describing the long journey of the souls through a hot desert and over a dead sea. But she could not alter fate. She struggled mightily, but, in the end, the guardian of Irkálla’s gates, the dreaded Qarún, overpowered her. All she could do was try to send the young Qérayan’s shade and St’énelo’s along with the older leader’s onward to the netherworld. Their lives could not be spared. Their deaths had been decreed.

“Find a gold leaf from the silver branch of the holy, copper tree. Send it to the next world through the sacred fire,” the boatman instructed her and so she related to the assembled mourners. “Only then may this unburied soul, the young man who drowned at sea, enter the city of the dead. It was decreed that, at the end of the thread which the gracious Fates spun for his life, he was destined to be a divine sacrifice. It was demanded by the great goddess, Unyá.”

Karména countered the young man’s soul with that of the virtuous St’énelo. “Surely you recognize this good man, O boatman. Let this blameless man’s life stand as payment for the one who drowned. Take this good man into the city of the dead and let the youth return to the living.”

“
Ai
no, pretty maiden, that cannot be,” Qarún’s deeper voice responded from the same Karména’s mouth. “I must take this one to another place, where the
mainád
queen and earth’s future king await their future destiny. But neither Ainyáh nor young Telepínu may touch that sacred shore. Only the best of men may enter that holy place.”

“Perhaps, perhaps,” Karména agreed, giving ground. “But a thought has entered my heart, O boatman. Surely the good
wánaks
and
wánasha
of the White Island will pay any fee that you, O grim Qarún, could demand. Surely the royal couple will ransom the young man and give him yet a few more years among the living.” He would not yield, not to Karména, nor to the far-famed ‘Elléniya’s superior power, not even to the potency of true goodness.

Karména, after her long and arduous journey to ‘Aidé and back, had another vision. “I see, I see!” she cried, throwing her arms wide. “From the top of Death’s mountain, I see the world. It is spread out like a coverlet before me, a vision as true as a new blade.

“I see communities struck by the plague, making ever more desperate sacrifices to unheeding gods. I hear all the winds roaring at once, storms that batter every shore of the Great Green Sea. Lament, you lands and nations. The barren fields of Death’s country are sown with the innumerable souls of those who committed dreadful crimes. They have shed blood in sacred places. They have defiled holy altars and fouled the springs that should have been sanctuaries. They have killed and killed and could not be sated, despite all the black blood they spilled.

“But that is not all. There are green shoots rising from the fire-blackened countryside of Death. The dead will live again, carried in the hearts and souls of those who still live. Rising, rising, on every side are towers of bliss and fountains of joy, where the virtuous spend their days. A new firebird will rise on ash-covered wings. Up from Death’s blighted seas, she flies, this lovely bird, upward, upward, on rainbow-colored wings! I ride her great back, I cling to the feathers and their flames burn my hands. Carry me onward! Carry me onward and up to the light again! I pledge you my flesh, I promise you my own bones as your fodder, my dear Firebird. I will give up everything to you, lady Fire, mistress Flame!

“I see! I hear! The future lies open to me. Nothing is hidden. I see a new, larger, stronger community that will arise from these remnants of an Age. Our Time of Bronze has come to an end. The destiny of this new time is as bright and hard as the Black Bronze that falls from the sky. It is common, but strong, is this new metal. It is capable of atrocities beyond anything that the world has yet known. O, what is this ghastly vision that you have shown me, gods? Take it away! No, no, I cannot shut it out. I must know. Reveal it, show me everything.
Ai
, yes, I see, I see, the Firebird is the spirit of the new Age of Black Bronze. It is strong, that new Time. It will see abominable cruelty. But it will also see achievement beyond compare!”

She screamed, a long, fading cry that whistled in her lungs in the end and she collapsed on the earth. Her audience lay on the ground, shaking, fearing still. The very air seemed wounded by the passion of her cries. In the silence, they seemed to hear echoes that continued her wail, its shuddering sound still filling their ears.

But the
flámen
was not done, even then. Breathing hard, sweating profusely, she forced herself to raise her head one last time above the wing of the phoenix. In a voice now as quiet as her screams had been loud before, she whispered, “One among you has wed an Italian girl and brought her home, at long last. Another among you must do the same and take a second Italian wife. But she must not be of the Rásna tribe, this time, among whom you have taken up residence. Nor may she be of the Apúza tribe, to whom you are bound by ties of marriage and mutual obligation. This new maiden, this further bride, must be of the despised ones, the Ladínu. Lawénna is this fabled woman’s name, and it is she who is destined to bear the Divine Child anew. That sacred birth will come to pass among the forest dwellers, the huntsmen, in the presence of our Divine Stag, Sélwan. The chosen couple will bring forth a child who will grow up to be the new
wánaks
of both our peoples, a man who will be both Lárez and Lúkum, chieftain and war leader at once, alongside his priestess wife. Together, they will give birth to kings and queens for the future, on into eternity, in the name of the lord of the thundering rainclouds, Tarqún!

“That is all. The light is fading. My eyes are blind again. I sink down.”

So it came to pass. As the seeress prophesied, on the Island of Fire, a New Zeyugeláya was born, among whom Lawénna and her foreign-born husband came to rule, as the Tarqún of a new nation, as the Age of Black Bronze was born. But that is another story.