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

Please note: This is a weekly post

Like a soon-to-be wife, in her first days at the cave Cela-Byi had waited for star-spirit Kija’s return. He hadn’t returned, but the resident dragon had. As they’d agreed on her previous visit the front belonged to that dragon, though it allowed her to pass through to fetch food and firewood. That resident dragon even allowed her to harvest the small dragons that every morning would stand like wood-carvings in the sun, as if offering themselves to this two-legged scaleless kin. She would not otherwise have eaten them.

In the mornings, too, she gathered fruit, chasing away the monkeys before they’d stripped the bushes. She shouted at them, “You can eat the leaves.” Though she could eat certain leaves too.

She found a tuber-patch and marked it. The grandmother tuber offered itself for Cela-Byi to use, hollowed out, to collect and store water. Around the grandmother tuber were several young plants. Their buried fruits would be sweet and softly edible. But once she’d eaten them that patch would be gone so she left those alone.

For food, water and shelter, she managed. And she’d had her spice pots with her on that fateful day when she rescued star-spirit Kija and he lifted her into the sky, spices for healing, not for cooking, but she supposed them good for both. She even had fire, although in the dows the men made the fire. But first she’d had to find dry kindling and that wasn’t easy when every fallen branch was too damp to take flame. Fungi were better. Back and back, she went to fetch more. And once she had a fire embering away in the deeper part of the cave, she could then bring in wood to dry out. She didn’t know how long she must live here. Maybe until she died? Maybe that was what star-spirit Kija was waiting for. Maybe then he’d take her to his god-hill to dwell with him.

With food, water, shelter and fire sorted, she then fretted of what to do with her days. That’s when she discovered the passage, its opening deep in that first cave, a tight squeeze that beckoned her to explore.

By the feeble light of a solitary taper, she’d seen something, some marks, a drawing maybe, on the cave wall. Curious, she wanted to see more. Now this was her tenth return to the high cave with firewood and the fungi-kindling. Squatting with her heels firmly planted, she laid the start of a fire, just a few sticks and a nest of crackly dry leaves. Her slip of fungus caught the offered spark. The spark ate the fungus. The burning fungus then tried to eat her fingers too, but she quickly placed it in the nest of leaves, and blew, and hoped, and blew again.

With a grin, she sat back.

“I’m not Itamakku now,” she said to the cave-spirit. “Here, no Itamakku man says there is fire I make for you, where is food you cook for me. Here, no Itamakku man says there is bed, where is baby for my name. Star-spirit Kija has freed me. See, I make fire.”

She straightened, rising above the fire she had made. Strong, alive, and free of the demands of her birth-spirits. She stretched and laughed in delight. And saw.

With an outstretched finger she traced the figure on the cave-wall, a frown deepening, tightening her brow. She drew back and tilted her head. She squinted as if that would help. It made no difference.

“These are not monkeys,” she said – to herself, to the cave-spirit, to the Byi-kin spirit. To whoever, it made no difference, though likely it was to star-spirit Kija for this was what he’d wanted her to see when he left her at this cave.

“See,” she said to her own Byi-spirit, “he didn’t abandon me, he hasn’t rejected me. He freed me, freed me to see this. This, his message.”

Two legs, not monkeys, no tails. These, marked out in solid black against the chalk-white wall, weren’t easy to identify. Yet these must be men. But what men?

The easiest to see weren’t men at all but, behind what looked like a fence, were women. No mistaking them. The one man amongst them grew a tall feather from his head. An Itamakku headman? Though was it possible that others had lived in this place before the Itamakku, and their headman had worn tall feathers too? Probably not.

Above the Itamakku were two types of men. One, the more numerous, were tall, with hands sticking out of their square chests and long legs with a man’s bits clearly displayed. Like the Itamakku headman, feathers grew from their heads. Lines connected those heads to the heads of three much smaller figures. They had no features and now Cela-Byi wasn’t sure these smaller figures were men at all. Where were their man-bits?

To the side of this group of men was another figure. Despite he was shown horizontal, he was of the square-chested type. No line connected him, but beneath him were marks that might have been intended as plants of a sort.

Cela-Byi lowered herself to a cross-legged sit beside her fire, which she looked at and nodded with pride. But she’d rather that her pride was for knowing the message here on the wall.

From the slightly greater distance she could see what she’d missed before by being so close. Above all these figures were shapes like star-spirit Kija’s spirit-house that had lifted into the air and brought her here. And above those were shapes such as those on Cela-Kuci’s star-seats although none looked familiar.

For a countless time, she sat by her fire and studied the scene. That it was a message from Kija she hadn’t a doubt, but she couldn’t pull out its meaning. She remained in that position, in that high cave until the fire puttered and gasped, and her belly grumbled, and her mouth sealed in dryness, and she was so very tired.

If she slept here in this high cave, with hunger gnawing her belly, she might find it easy to visit the cave-spirit. The cave-spirit would know star-spirit Kija’s message.

*

Cela-Byi woke with a start and a gasp. What…? She laughed with the shock of it, the delightfully wonderful shock of it. The cave was aglow but not from her fire, that now scarcely showed a glimmering ember. But the wall – the wall where she’d seen the black-drawn figures. They were no longer black – at least, some of them weren’t. The tall ones. They were the source of the light.

They stood amidst fire – or so it seemed, though no flames licked around them. Yet the glow of them lit the cave.

As she gawped, for what else could she do, the tallest, the one she’d thought was Kija, took on a fuller form. Though not solid, not flesh nor even clay, yet able to step out of that wall. As a painted black figure, he measured less than her forearm. Now, standing between the wall and her fire, he was as tall as she remembered him when she’d rescued him from the dow. Though not as solid.

She jumped to her feet, only to find herself rooted in the cave floor. That didn’t surprise her, for what Itamakki wouldn’t have dissolved clean away in the presence of a star-spirit in star-form. But she was a spirit-woman and although tremors ran through her limbs, and her kindred dragons bestirred her innards, she could tolerate his star-form presence. As to her head, that seemed empty, unthinking – except that her eyes feasted on his celestial beauty. And her breath seemed to seep from her.

He took a step nearer, but something yanked him back. That black line that connected him to the three small black figures on the wall. He turned his chest, shoulders, arms, to grasp at it, to tug, to tug, to tug. But it wouldn’t budge.

“Is this the message?” To her ears her words were mere sounds from under the water yet loud enough to wake her.

She blinked several times. Disoriented in the featureless blackness, she could have been anywhere. In the space between stars? Yet she wasn’t alone. A presence held her as if in strong arms. Contentment filled her to erupt as a sigh and a smile. Her memory returned to place her in the darkened cave with a fire whose embers were all but out. And she still didn’t know the message.

After squeezing and crawling through passages that scarce would admit a child she was back down to the dragon’s cave where, without stopping to eat, she worked on her return. To better understand what she’d seen on that high-cave wall she must first make another fire there. That again would take time. That cave was a double-day climb, and she’d have to make that climb several times to fetch enough wood. And that while carrying a taper. There were narrow stretches and low ceilings to squeeze through, so she couldn’t carry much at each climb. Maybe to set a fire wherever the passage opened out would make it easier? However done, she had to see this scene properly for it was for this that star-spirit Kija had brought her here.

Continues on Monday

Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed

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