Chapter Twenty-One of my current wip. As before, all and any comments very much appreciated

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The Itamakki was sprawled face down on a dry scree, blood thick over her arms and her cheeks. Was she alive? That question overruled all other concerns. Not a medic, yet a zem at least knew how to check for a pulse.

He sat back on his heels. Relief.

But he couldn’t leave her there on the fallen stones, exposed both to ravening beasts and, an eye cast up to the plateau, to Poalt.

He scoped her up, carried her as he imagined an Itamakku male might carry his female to his bed. Though he knew this wasn’t the way the Monzas of old did it. The female Monza called, the male obeyed. But from the stories he’d heard when he worked in the mines even that wasn’t right. The Techs selected the male and led him to the breeding female. And where had he a bed to carry her to.

“Stop it!” he chided himself, aloud, not caring who heard it. “You will not succumb. You will not die.”

He must fight the desire. She wasn’t even a Monza. Not the same race or species or genus. Alien. He might as well use this increasingly impatient body of his to ram a…a goat!

With his shouting, and the jolting as he slipped, slithered and descended the slope, the female roused, though not to full consciousness.

There is a moment between consciousness and unconsciousness when the mind slips into the psi-sphere, the Fire-keepers on Colabri had said.

And what had Saker said? The Techs probably learned the Itamakku language in the psi-sphere.

Where was a safe place where he could linger with her and take her speech? But walking and looking, looking and walking, he could find no such place. She wasn’t heavy but still a cumbersome burden. Must he enter the psi-sphere while he walked and carried her? Could he do that? It was beyond anything the Fire-keepers had taught him.

Yet to acquire her language, to speak with her – to speak with the Itamakku, he amended – how much more they could learn.

He was adept at entering the psi-sphere, though never under such conditions. Yet beneath his feet there was grass now covering the rocks, Safer footing. He could do this. He need not even close his eyes, though that was always preferred. Imagination. All that was required was imagination. He imagined his mental activity as peaks on a graph that slowly flattened until they presented a smooth up-curving arc. And there, entwined with his, was a second arc. His body zinged, every sense alive. Not what he required, it threatened to crash him out of this state.

Insistent, powerful desire fought with desire, but he mustn’t succumb. She tangled around him, sucking, taking. In vain he tried to pry away her limbs. Better that he broke the trance. But that would gain him nothing. Speak to me.

Her desires were drowning him. Yet he didn’t want to be free of her.

Share words with me, he tried again. Make me wise amongst your people.

“Star-spirit Kija?” She spoke, aloud, her consciousness regained. And the sound of her voice brought him back from the psi-sphere.

But star-spirit, was that what she thought him?

“Can you stand, now?” Happily, would he hold her forever. But the proximity of her, and how she had been in the psi-sphere…if he didn’t disentangle himself soon he’d never be able to walk away without first burying himself in her.

He placed her on her feet, slowly, gently, his arms around her for support. “Are you recovered, Cela-Byi – your spirit returned?”

“You…you know my name? Because you have chosen me? But you must come with me.” She was already moving towards the trees, her hand tugging at him. “You must tell us what you want of us. And might you feed me? Please.”

She wanted to take him to her skein’s dow? He didn’t know how long that walk but a day wouldn’t cover it. And what food could he find for her? And where were they to sleep? And how then could he resist her? He glanced back to the plateau. It would be much quicker and easier to return to the farm and take the flier. Yet she tugged at his hand and he, his body alive with anticipation, followed.

They reached the perimeter with its holos. It wouldn’t take a moment to trigger the vision, and this time hear the words with comprehending ears. But Cela-Byi was so fast away, he must follow else lose her.

The path threaded through tight copses, between bushes, over rippling rills, a path familiar to her but not to him. Perhaps at this speed and with her knowledge, they might arrive at her dow within the day. Several times their fingers slipped apart, and he had to run to catch up, aware of the net of surface roots beneath his feet, a constant potential to snag his toes and trip him. He was aware too of the probability of forest cats, and boars with tusks that could gore. Yet Cela-Byi seemed unafraid of them. Knowing his clumsy blundering would scare them away?

It was beyond midday before she slowed her pace, her chin uptilted, head turning, turning. Homing in to a sound? He stilled his feet to listen the same. The canopy, which had been loud with the calls of birds and monkeys, had fallen silent as if the callers had fled. In this unnatural silence came faint and distant sounds. But being neither a tracker nor hunter, he couldn’t work out what it was..

“Move. Now. Fast.” And Cela-Byi was away.

Ahead, the understorey was dense, and he could discern no thread of a path. Where had she gone? Was it safe to call her name? He decided against it. Instead, more mindless than a single cell, he halted his flight while he searched for the right way to go.

Turning, turning, from every which way he saw the same: Itamakku males emerging from the wide-leafed bushes of the understorey. Stone-headed spears formed a thorny barrier before them. And all those points were aimed at him.

But those spears weren’t the only form of barrier threatening him. Had Cela-Byi betrayed him, delivered him ready for slaughter as retribution for the killing of the immature male? He’d seen Itamakku males before, hunters, warriors, but they’d not been so…adorned. By Pendol’s Great Stone, their mature uprising parts had grown excessively long. Was this the effect of an Itamakku female? And judging by the thongs that tied those parts to a band about their waists, they’re grown heavy too. Though perhaps that weight was unnaturally increased by what they’d wrapped around those fierce thrusting gene-given nether-horns. Jess couldn’t discern exactly what was what, but he wouldn’t deny the level of threat. Not easily intimidated, yet he felt himself shrinking even as his fingers felt for the reassurance of his stun-gun.

But that stun-gun could take down only one. And these weren’t dragons to ignore him while they went into a feeding frenzy. To counter threat with another threat was not the answer. He moved his hands away from his gun and raised them, palm towards the Itamakku. “See, no weapons, no threat.”

The one Jess took to be their leader – white hair, wrinkled jowls – said, “Not Itamakku.”

Jess puffed a breath to cool his face which now was burning.

Cela-Byi had said of him star-spirit Kija. He said the same and hoped they had no traditional tales of killing their gods.

Without lowering their spears, the hunters, warriors, whatever they were, now jabbered. They spoke so fast and with several talking together one over the other, Jess couldn’t pick out the words. He waited, side-glances at the surrounding understorey. Was there a place he might escape to? Was Cela-Byi waiting for him just out of sight?

Yet it appeared they knew the import of that star-spirit Kija name. Eyes opened wide, flashing whites. Jaws dropped. They lowered their spears. Knees folded. The hunters – twelve – buried their faces into their arms. Confirmation of what Jess had thought when Cela-Byi had named him. To the Itamakku, star-spirit Kija was what the Techs knew as a god, a dweller of the Animosphere. And unless they really did have a tradition of killing their gods, these hunters wouldn’t harm him. Moreover, they might help him find Cela-Byi.

“Cela-Byi, where is she?”

Heads lifted, shoulders and chests followed. These Itamakku rose up to their knees which made those fierce-looking nether-horns perk up into a more threatening stance. But they wouldn’t use those…things…on him. Would they? He was a god. And those nether-horns weren’t for mating, those horns like those of most horned beasts were meant for goring and killing.

Again, the Itamakku spoke too fast for Jess to understand them.

“Slower. Only one speak.” He pointed to the one he’d thought their leader. “You, old man, speak with me. Where is Cela-Byi?”

The elder looked about him, made eye contact with his men, and then shook his head. “What star-spirit need ask this? You sure you’re a star-spirit? Maybe you prove it.” He nodded vigorously. “That’s it. You prove to us you are a star-spirit, and we will help you find this star-woman, as you ask.”

Jess straightened, his shoulders thrust back. How was he to prove he was something he was not? If he knew why Cela-Byi named him a star-spirit…but he did, her memory of it found while in the psi-sphere seeking her language. It was from their first meeting when he’d stunned the dragon. The subsequent feeding frenzy had allowed her to escape where she shouldn’t have strayed, too close to their burrows. And from this she had thought him this star-spirit.

If he repeated his miraculous act of stunning…something. Maybe a bird, or a monkey? Would that be proof enough?

But deciding his target required some thought. In seeking Cela-Byi’s language he’d discovered their naming conventions: they were named for certain animals according to when and where they were born. Kija, he’d discovered, was a deer. He’d not been surprised to learn that Byi was a dragon. And each had a sacred association with their star-spirit. Twelve star-spirits, but amongst them the only bird was the eagle, while the monkey – Tiki – was generic. Perhaps best not to fell a monkey. But bringing down one of those pesky birds wasn’t so easy, they moved so fast.

Yet, “There.” Jess couldn’t have been more pleased as the brightly feathered bird landed at the elder’s feet. “Proof.”

“You killed it?” The elder’s words rattled with disapproval.

“It’ll fly again if you leave it alone.” Unless the fall had broken its wings.

“You ask where is Cela-Byi?” The elder’s shoulders raised in what developed into an exaggerated shrug. “We know no Cela-Byi. Not amongst the hill-dows. But we hear Toki-dow has a new spirit-woman. Maybe she’s this Byi-woman?”

Palm to palm, Jess lowered his head in the Monza sign of humble appreciation. He hoped these hill-Itamakku understood it.

He looked up again and asked, “Where is Toki-dow?”

That caused more jabbering. He supposed a star-spirit ought to know this thing.

The white-haired elder pointed. Down by the sea.

To be continued next Monday

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