crispina kemp

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

Please note: This is now a weekly post

Cela-Kuci grabbed Li-Kerbi’s wrist and, heeding no protest, pulled her from the platform. “Until Kija tells us what he wants, you must remain with me.”

Li-Kerbi tensed up her face, a glance at her mother and her mother’s house. Sacrifice, said spirit-mother-deer, and Li-Kerbi gasped. She hadn’t thought of that possibility – wasn’t Tammi-Tiki’s life enough? A life is not a sacrifice; it is an honour to dwell with the star-spirits.

She tried to straighten her face. After all, she ought to be happy that she’d never be given to her father’s hill-man now. But things were in motion that couldn’t be undone, and she couldn’t see beyond the day and—

“Take off your wraps, your hat and shoes,” Cela-Kuci said, which command brought Li-Kerbi back to the moment.

She couldn’t remember leaving the dow-centre, walking with Cela-Kuci to the back of Byi-house, to the dragon’s star-seat. Yet here they were at its gate with its pole wrapped around with all manner of carved dragons. A thought held and softened her fear, that Anji-Tiki-ta and Cela-Kuci might want her to seek out the star-spirit Kija but maybe the spirits had other ideas? And Cela-Kuci might want her to abide with her as a spirit-woman, but would the ancestors agree? Those spirits must know she wasn’t the most obedient of daughters.

“Byi is waiting,” Cela-Kuci said, arms crossed over her chest, her left-hand fingers tapping the right arm.

“But…?”

“A child is not born fully wrapped. Now strip off those clothes.”

“Born…?”

“But of course born.” Cela-Kuci’s tone displayed a notable lack of patience. “You are no longer Li-Kerbi, taken from the bull father by the deer mother. You are Cela-Byi – taken from the dragon father by the dragon mother.”

“And I’ll reside here?”

Cela-Kuci rolled her eyes and hefted a heavy sigh. “Have I not said, did I not say? You abide with me. Cela, Cela, spirit-woman.”

Li-Kerbi, hereafter to be known as Cela-Byi, removed the wrappings gained from Kija-house with hands and lips unsteady. She had asked not to be given to the hill-man. But might she want some other man, someone she’d not yet met? But as Cela-Byi she’d not be any man’s woman, not one from any dow.

The hanging bones above the gate clattered as Cela-Kuci led the newly-born spirit-woman into the fenced enclosure. Shaded in the wide overhang of the roof-thatch was the tree-stump that might or mightn’t be the Byi star-seat.

Inside the thatched cubby were none of the usual trappings found in a woman’s quarters. No pots and baskets and the makings of food; the dow provided everything. No bedding either. Did Cela-Kuci sleep on the hard earth? Without a cover even in the coldest nights? The spirit-woman didn’t sleep in the adjoining house. Since she moved house every thirty days, once a year she would have slept in Kija-house, and she never had.

The newly-named Cela Byi took a deep breath and braved the question, “Where am I to sleep?”

“With the dragons, of course. While you’re here.”

Cela-Byi’s jaw dropped. “In their burrows?”

Cela-Kuci’s leathery face briefly creased with soft-voiced laughter. Then, “Ah, our new spirit-woman ought to have wrappings.”

“New wrappings?” But she couldn’t see the makings anywhere in that cubby.

“Later,” Cela-Kuci said. “Too soon yet for the dow to provide. Best now to borrow Li-Kerbi’s clothes – but mind you take care of them. They belong to Kija-house.”

Cela-Byi scampered back through the gate and quickly donned the clothes she’d not long shed. She breathed out a happy sigh. That felt better. She felt like Li-Kerbi again. Although she knew she was not. Maybe she never would be again. How did that feel?

On Cela-Byi’s return, Cela-Kuci held out a skin tanned to earthen-red. By its folded size massive, and so heavy she needed both hands. She nodded to a stack of sturdy sticks. “With those we tent it. And see, the dragons make our bed.”

“Did…? How…?” Had the men of Toki-dow killed that dragon? That was big bravery.

“The ancestors,” the old spirit-woman answered her. “And that’s where I go now. I leave you safely tucked in the care of spirit-Byi.”

*

The dragon skin wasn’t quite as massive as Cela-Byi had imagined although, tented, it did provide shelter for two women, tucked in tight. The folded skin had been bulked by what was within it – numerous smaller skins that would wrap a body against the chills of the night and protect against the bites of invasive scuttling creatures.

Though those skins looked thin, they felt thick. But they were old and worn almost to holes in places where the scales had flaked off. Wearing these, she’d be protected by Byi. Cela-Byi chuckled at that notion – until she remembered what had brought her here. The star-man who Cela-Kuci said was a vision of star-spirit Kija. Spirit-Kija was no longer her star-spirit mother. Was she to take Cela-Kuci as her birth mother, Cela-Kuci who now was visiting the ancestors? Exactly where and how she visited, the newly-born Cela-Byi didn’t know.

Being newly-born, of course Cela-Byi was ignorant. Confused. Bewildered. Vulnerable. Vulnerable? She shuddered. So much to learn if she were to be a spirit-woman. And she was to be one, wasn’t she.

Cela-Byi, a spirit-woman? She nodded, vigorously. But not a spirit-woman in the mould of Cela-Kuci. Not a spirit-woman at the beckon of every woman of the dow, not at the call of every man. Yet it’s for that beckon and call that the dow will feed and clothe me.

“I shall be above that,” she declared, her voice muffled beneath the dragon skin.

Above, what did she mean by that? As the headman was above the other men of the dow? Above he was – in that the men listened to his words, and they willingly helped him in the hunt. Yet everything brought back from the hunt was always shared with the dow. It was as if he were their father. And the spirit-woman, she was like the dow’s mother, advising, seeking answers, just as any mother would for her own close family.

“Neither dow-father nor dow-mother shall I be. I’ll be higher even than that.” She would be that – if only she could sleep.

She still hadn’t slept when Cela-Kuci returned, arms laden with food given by the women of Byi-house.

“I have an answer,” the old spirit-woman said. “The ancestors say you must climb a god-hill, to be nearer the star-spirits. And there you’ll abide for three nights and three days and the star-spirit Kija will speak with you there. You’ll need strength, courage and endurance to do as you must, so have your fill of food now. There’ll be no more once you leave here.”

To be continued next Monday

Hope you enjoyed

All comments welcomed

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

Please note: This is now a weekly post

Every house had a star-spirit mother: Li-Kerbi’s was the star-deer, Kija. Every child born had a star-spirit father: Li-Kerbi’s was the star-bull, Kerbi. But every house had an overseeing headwoman and headman too. In Kija-house that was the old man Ampal-Sarbi-ta and Li-Nozim whose two daughters hadn’t long been given to hill-men in Robi-dow. At the dow-meeting, Ampal-Sarbi-ta and Li-Nozim spoke for Kija-house, as did the other headwomen and headmen for the other houses. In all there were twelve house-mothers, twelve house-fathers, the headman Anji-Tiki-ta, and the spirit-woman Cela-Kuci on the platform that represented the council. And Li-Kerbi.

She was finding it difficult not to fold her lips in, press them hard, hold them yet tighter by the clamp of her teeth. Although the platform only raised her knee-high, she was further filled with spirits – she prayed they were favourable spirits – that caused a churning of her innards. Star-spirit Kija, do not deliver me into decay and destruction. Ought she also pray to the star-bull? But no, she wanted away from the house and the life into which she was born.

“Star-spirit Kija speaks,” Cela-Kuci announced. “First with the taking and flaying of Tammi-Tiki, born to spirit-mother deer. Then with the miraculous snatching of Li-Kerbi from the very jaws of Byi’s own dragons. Li-Kerbi, also born to spirit-mother deer, tell your story so all might know and wonder.”

At this moment the spirits inside Li-Kerbi grew agitated, stealing her breath, unsettling her poise, destroying her composure. They bid her jump from the platform, to run away, even into the forest. To flee and to cry. Yet Li-Kerbi remembered the words of a story told her as a child, though she couldn’t remember who’d told her. And the woman said to the troublesome spirits, No! Help me, do not hinder. And the spirits obeyed. Li-Kerbi clasped her hands, eyes cast up to where at nightfall the star-spirits would shine in the sky. Help me, do not hinder, she said in the secret caverns of her heart.

The spirits inside her quietened and settled, they aided her with a great intake of breath and a rearranging of her story. While telling it she’d not look at her mother, nor at Cela-Kuci.

“It was four days past, and I was setting my nets in the shallows and –” she held out her hands in admitted guilt “– I know I was foolish to be so close to the dragons’ burrows. But no one fished there and I…I felt guided…guided to be there. Of course, the dragons sniffed the air and knew I was there.

“The first dragon, he was forest-tree tall and sea-rock huge. All scaly skin and…and I’d never been so close. Its forked tongue – yellow it was – lashed the air. And its teeth…” She rolled her eyes upwards and let out a guttural groan. Several of the women moved to catch her should she faint. But she recovered. “It lifted its heavy foot. And flopped it down. Lifted, and flopped, all the while pounding the ground. I couldn’t move for my terror else I’d have fled. And I could see that this one wasn’t alone. Twenty there were, twenty, all closing in on me. Slavering, preparing to eat me. That’s when the star-spirit appeared.

“It looked like a man, like…like Anji-Tiki-ta, except what he wore. No feathers but clad in shiny deer-yellow. He pointed his finger towards the dragon. And from that finger a dazzling light shot out, like a bright blue spear. And that spirit-spear drove into the dragon’s house-sized head and slayed it. Dead.

“The spirit-man looked at me, and I at him, and though no words were spoken yet I knew he was telling me something…important. But I was too scared to be so close to those dragons, and so I ran. I ran and I ran.

“That spirit-man was the star-spirit Kija. That’s what he was telling me. I know that now. And he has a message for us, but I didn’t wait to hear what he’d say. My deepest apologies, I should have stayed. Strip me of skin and hang me on that tree alongside Tammi-Tiki.” She clasped her hands in front of her to make an earnest display of her apology. But Li-Kerbi knew she was in no danger of that happening. Though she might be thrashed they wouldn’t flay her; only the demons and spirits did that.

A busy wave of words wove amongst the lesser Itamakku families of Toki-dow as they sat below the raised platform. Previously, they’d heard Li-Kerbi’s story only as retold by their various house-mothers. And the tale they’d now heard wasn’t exactly the same. But whatever their opinion of this embellished form, Anji-Tiki-ta cut their chatter.

He stood, seeming a giant amongst the lesser Itamakku. His hands thrust skyward as if he’d shake the hands of the star-spirits. Li-Kerbi wished him well, shaking hands with a dragon, for this was the ninth day of Byi, the star-dragon.

Li-Nozim, tapped on his thigh – as his mother she could do that. “It is Kija who seeks our attention, not Byi.” She said it quietly but not so quiet that Li-Kerbi didn’t hear.

“I know that,” he hissed back at her.

Li-Kerbi turned her head and covered her mouth before she smirked. He might know it, but a man, he wouldn’t know where Kija was in the sky despite the star-seats were set in the same order.

He slowly turned, an eye to hold the gaze of every house-mother. “Four days we’ve had to examine our behaviour, to find where we’re lacking, to discover what we have done to offend the star-deer Kija. And what have you found?”

Li-Kuca, house-mother of the headman’s house, was the first to answer. “We found nothing. Our hunters – your hunters – assure us that no deer have been killed without the correct procedures and offerings. The deer-born who reside in our house are honoured as equals. No offence, no slight, no insult that we can discover. But this is only Wael-House. I can’t speak for the others.”

The others reported the same, from Wael, Naba, Byi, Manula, Nozim, Tiki, to Sarbi.

Then was the turn of Kija-House, Li-Kerbi’s own house, where the house-mother, Li-Sae, repeated as the other house-mothers had said. But before she’d said above two handfuls of words the jeering began. To jeer or even to counter-speak was considered an insult to the slighted one’s star-spirit, and thus few would dare it. But many at this meeting did dare. Such a clatter and clang, Li-Kerbi couldn’t separate the words. Yet it was obvious what they said.

Everyone knew that Tammi-Tiki had been chided many times for straying unaccompanied beyond the bounds of the dow’s gathering range. And hadn’t Li-Kerbi just said she was down by the burrows where she know she oughtn’t be. Two disobedient Itamakku, born to Kija-House. There lay the fault. Now star-spirit Kija has a message for the Itamakku. So let Li-Kerbi seek out the star-spirit to discover what he wants with them. And is it only the people of Toki-dow?

Anji-Tiki-ta held up his hands. The shouting stopped. “Is this the consensus of every house?”

“Not every house-mother has spoken yet,” Li-Sae said. “Let them say and see if there is fault amongst them.”

Anji-Tiki-ta turned to the other house-mothers, of Kerbi, Tawan, Sae and Kuca houses. But they reported as the others had: This was no fault of theirs. Anji-Tiki-ta nodded acceptance of that. “Then it is decided, Li-Kerbi shall seek out the star-spirit to discover what he wants with us.”

To be singled out from her neighbours of Toki-dow sat well with Li-Kerbi, even though those neighbours had said of her disobedience. To speak with a star-spirit was to set her above Cela-Kuci. But she twisted her mouth and contorted her face. She looked up at the sky, and all round about. She wanted to ask but hoped someone might say it first.

Perhaps one of the star-spirits favoured her, though she didn’t know if it was Kija, Kerbi or Wael. But whichever spirit, that spirit prompted Anji-Tiki-ta to speak her question, “How is she to do this? Sit on Kija’s star-seat? Or climb into the sky?”

“I shall seek out the ancestors and ask it off them,” Cela-Kuci said, a harsh look at Li-Kerbi. “And until we have that answer, Li-Kerbi will abide with me.”

To abide with Cela-Kuci, but that wasn’t what Li-Kerbi wanted. What if the spirit-woman never released her?

To be continued next Monday

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