by cavebear
Ayla had been nervous about meeting Jondolar's people, and the strain had shown through those early days. And there are tales of those times. But this is not one of those tales. Rather, this is about meanness and redemption; about descent and arising.
There was, in one of the Caves, a woman who supported herself through unusual practices. She made very good tools. But she did not give or trade them, she only allowed people to use them for a short time. In return, they had to give her useful items, and give back the tools. They thought her odd, but she did make very useful tools, and both they and she profited by the practice. The users got the advantage of the odd tool, and she got something in return for it. Everyone was happy. They called her Lender, and to the extent that they understood what she did, they referred to Lender's Game. though none practiced at it so well as did she.
Over the course of years, however, she gained a new name. As she had become more skilled in the art of bartering her tools value, she became more avaricious. In time, they named her Taker. She still made the best tools, and the ones that seemed not needed everyday, but they had become dependent on her for those. She slyly discouraged others from making more common and everyday tools by providing them to most people at less value than others could produce them.
Taker had even learned ways of making marks to signify who had which tools and what they had been willing to provide in return for the use of them. She had come to amass a great store of valuable trade items. She no longer needed to forage, or participate in the hunts, and she never failed to have food through the coldest Winter nights.
It was at this stage that Ayla had come among the Zelandonii. Taker had her small empire in full swing when Ayla arrived with Jondolar. The Leaders paid little attention to things that did not directly threaten the survival of the Tribe.
On the very day that Ayla was nervously greeting Jondolar's kith and kin, Taker had expanded her practice by accepting a new worker of stone. Barca was a good stone-flaker, and even better, the son of his hearth had a delicate but sure touch with fine details on burins and awls. Barca's hearth-mate had developed a way of polishing stone edges that she had only shown her son, Marco, and Marco, in turn had thought to apply that to very fine shapes like needles. Taker, of course, recognized the lending value of the new thinner needles at once and promised 4 meals' food for every day of work.
Barca was delighted. Marco had uneven legs, and could not hunt for food. Barca, touched with a slight case of the same problem himself, could not take Marco on the long journey to the Healer-Down-The-Mother. Knowing his own difficulty at being on the hunt, and seeing that Marco was even less able to struggle through the hunt, Barca leapt at the chance to work for the support that Taker offered.
Barca and Marco struggled every day to meet the demands that Taker placed on them. At first, they could keep up, but Takers demands grew heavier as they became more dependent on her food payments. Some nights, both would collapse in their hearth area and weep silently together from the effects of the stone dust and flying chips. Maarco's condition had grown worse over the months and Barca found that he himself could not move around as lightly as in earlier times.
One night, in a dream, Barca had a vision of Taker leading him around the camp on a leather thong, and he did not sleep that night. In the morning, he understood that he was trapped as certainly as the mammoth that the hunters drove to the enclosures and then slaughtered.
Taker took, Barca chipped, and Marco polished. Day after day after day. In Barca's mind, he saw a strange idea; future days, all the same, all filled with sitting and chipping. And Marco chained to the same fate, day after endless day, and then… a blank. He pondered this the next morning, watching Marco chip polish needles endlessly. "What was that blank vision", he wondered.
The next day, a child of a neighboring hearth died. The child had had a fever for a few days, and then it just... died. Horrified, Barca knew the meaning of his dream; Marco would die young. His tears moistened the burin he was forming.
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Taker smiled. Her practice was going well. Barca made chipped tools and Marco made the very small ones so expertly. And for every meal she gave them, she received several in return from grateful users, and each tool returned many weeks worth of goods before needing replacement. Out of sight of the rest of the Tribe, she danced a small frenetic movement of utter joy. She was free of any real work, and she lived as well as the Leaders. Her pleasure was overwhelming.
Later that day, the Leader of the Cave came around asking if she could contribute some food to the Mother of the child that had died earlier. Taker was shocked! "Give up food for a Mother who had failed her child?" The very idea angered her, and she spoke in that tone. "I will not give one grain of food to such as she who will not take care of her own." Leader was shocked in turn, but turned away quietly. Hesitating, she turned and said to Taker, "That Mother has others who are hungry and we must all help."
Taker thought of her stores of valuables, and became fearful that some would be taken from her. "I have nothing to give", she cried. Leader blinked, but turned and walked towards the next Cave. Many paces away, Leader stopped and turned again. "Be careful that what you have does not choke you in the night", and spat on the ground between them.
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Taker went to her furs early that night. It was the Short Day of the Longest Night, and evil spirits were sometimes about. She dismissed the Leader's words, and huddled into her lone furs. Gnawing on some cold meat because she did not want to waste wood for a fire, she drifted to sleep.
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The creature crept through the Cave, sniffing here and there, testing the air always. Finally, it found the hearth it sought. And it stood there, silent and as still as the stalagmites. Still as death itself, and as unconcerned about others as the stalagmites themselves. And waited.
Taker stirred. She had been uneasy all that night, and sleep gave no ease. She glanced idly around the Cave, trying to judge the time. For some reason, she could not see any of the lights outside the Cave that would have let her judge the depth of the night. Suddenly one light appeared out there, and she easily recognized it. She relaxed; it was not much into the night, perhaps half through til the great light of the morning. And she froze! The light had blinked out again, then shone anew, for there was someone standing near to her in the dark.
She blew quickly on the dim embers of the fire, such as it was after no evening cooking. In the darkness of the Cave, that was sufficient. She could make out a large powerful shape, menacing yet calm. It towered over her, yet it was smaller than some of the males of the Cave. It's presence surrounded her. It was ancient, though she had never thought of the past before. Finally, it spoke, if such a sound could be called speech. Yet she understood it. Not in her surface mind, but in her deep recesses of past lives. She arose.
Her ears heard sounds she could not comprehend, but her deepest mind understood. The slow garbled message said to leave the Cave. She refused. The creature extended an arm and grasped her hand. It pulled gently, but demandingly. She followed.
Outside the Cave, Taker shivered. The creature glanced at her and smiled; making a graceful movement of arm and hand. Her coldness fell away. Grasping her hand once more, the creature gestured vaguely to the place they never went, toward the glaciers. They lifted from the ground and glided across the land she knew so well. More speedily every moment, the moved further away from the places she knew. Taker was in places unknown to her.
In a cavern of ice, they stopped. The creature was clear to her now by some unknown light. It was smaller than she first thought, but oh so much stronger than she had realized. It was all bone and muscle. "I am dreaming" she thought. "I am asleep in my furs in the Cave, and I should not have eaten that old meat." It has made my mind wander.
The strange one grasped her hand hard, and pointed it toward the ice wall that confronted them. Hazily at first, then with greater clarity, some images formed. Taker stumbled in surprise. The images were moving, and they were of her childhood! She was 3 years old and wandering from hearth to hearth being given food and little sacks to hold as if they were miniature babies. And everyone was smiling at her with her bright golden hair and deep blue eyes. She held the real babies in her arms and everyone smiled anew. And they all praised her and her intelligence precocious ways. She helped Mothers with their chores, and the bee-hunters gave her honey to taste ahead of the upcoming festival. And she danced and danced knowing of the festival of the Short Day of the Long Night. And one of those hearths was that of the Mother of Barca! And Barca was dancing around in his lopsided way, and the bee hunters gave him some honey too and they were all dancing around happily together and laughing and
the vision stopped! Again there was only an icewall in front of Taker, and it was cold and lonely and she was afraid and lost. There was only the creature with its small body and strong muscles and its weak chin and strange face and she was afraid. It stared through her eyes and her head hurt. Then it gestured toward the opening in the ice cave and she ran, but it did no good. The creature was in front of her again. It pressed its hand over her eyes, and she was back in her furs in the hearth in the Cave.. She felt as though she had run from the far stream to the Cave without stopping even once, and she could feel the beating in her chest very strongly.
"That meant something", she thought to herself, "but what?" Exhausted, she fell asleep again.
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Taker's sleep was anything but calm. Tossing and turning in her furs, she could not find comfort or oblivion. One more turn, and she lay on her back, staring at what should be the roof of the Cave. Only they were people there. An old male with a missing eye and a withered arm, to be precise. He floated down slowly to her, and hovered pleasantly just out of reach of a standing person. Taker glared at him balefully. "You are like that creature that came earlier aren't you"? With elegant signs and flowing motions akin to a dance, he made her to understand "Yes and no". Then she heard real words in her head. "I am of the Spirit World, the old man said to her. I am called here by another, but I have strayed because of your need". She turned her head and tried to hide. He was worse than the first creature. She sensed some connection to that one, but this one was "different', new, yet older in a stranger way. More different, she decided, and clutched her furs closely around her.
Taker felt a stirring of the furs, as though something tried to clutch at them but could not quite get a grip. Fearful, she tossed kindling and wood onto the embers this time. wanting a better look yet afraid of the same. The furs shimmered and vanished. :"Ah, that is better", the creature thought to her. The signs were of comfort, yet danger at the same time. Taker screamed at the being, yet no one else in the Cave reacted. That made Taker get very very quiet!
The creature floated above and held down the one good hand. invitingly. Hesitating, Taker took the proffered hand and the Cave faded away as if vanishing in all directions at once. She had a sense of great movement and of utter stillness at the same time. As suddenly as it began, she was in the Cave again, but at the Hearth of Barca and Marco. Yet it was not night, but several hours earlier, or perhaps they were merely up late at night sitting at the hearth fire. Barca was giving a thing to Marco, wrapped up in a skin of fine fur. As she watched. Marco stood up to accept it, but fell over on the side of his bad leg. Barca caught him and set him gently by the fire, crying softly. Marco carefully opened the package.
It was a perfect honeycomb, recently traded for with the extra food that Barca had earned from Taker's practice. Marco gleefully sucked the honey from the comb. Barca caught his Hearth-mate's hands before he broke the honeycomb apart, saying "I have a surprise for you" and held out some conical shapes that he had made while Taker was not looking. "We can do a game with the honeycomb", he whispered. Marco set it on the ground with curiosity. Barca set a few of the cones into the honeycomb. "If you move a cone next to mine, then you can jump over it and go to another honeycomb hole. If you get to the other end, you win." Taker and the visitor watched into the night as Barca and Marco played their new game.
Taker turned to the visitor. "Why are we staring into another Hearth?" she asked uncomfortably. Her only answer were signs that seemed to say "Love and caring". "But why did you bring me here?" Taker demanded. Again the signs seeming love and caring, but something more. Something like the easing of pain, of sadness, of longing for the present. And Taker saw the boy clearly now, focussed on him, measured his movement with the practiced eyes of her people.
"Marco is dying" she said to him.. "Yes" he answered, "and he is not the only one". The visitor stared at her with his one good eye, like a burin forcing through the toughest leather hide. "He is not the only one". Taker felt a chill through her body as though from a Winter's gale, but from within and going outward. "Take me back", she whispered.
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Taker awoke in her furs. They were cold, and they should not have been. The dream of Marco had disturbed her, and the earlier one had bothered her by comparison. "Like eating meat one day and grass the next" she decided. Something was very wrong. Confused and silently weeping, she feel asleep again.
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Taker was expecting the next creature. Expecting it in time if not appearance anyway. It's appearance was horrid. It was her own Mother, but as they had buried her. She was gaunt with bones showing. She coughed horribly from the Affliction. She moved in pain and was gimp and nearly fleshless. She spoke no words, yet Taker understood every thought immediately.
*COME*, it said. "No Mother" I will not come with you, for I fear where you will take me. I do not desire the long sleep yet". *COME* it said again, and reached out a half-bony hand. "No" Taker screamed and ran. A hand clasped her throat. It crushed the air from her lungs. The other hand reached into her body and crushed the beating muscle in her chest. *COME* it said. Taker had no choice, pinioned by the hands that gave her live and now death. She was dragged to the far corner of the Cave and flung unceremoniously into the Barca hearth.
Unmoving, and gasping for breath, Taker was forced to observe silently. Barca seemed older somehow. A few years, maybe 5. In his outstretched arms, he held a small hide-covered shroud. Weeping unashamed, he advanced stiff-legged out of the Cave. Past the fire pits, past the middens of the bones of meals past, unseeing, he marched. Out of the light of the Cave into the dread of Winter he strode, yet lurching as if the wild dogs were snapping at his heels, but reflexively as one who moves by sheer will only. He continued through the bitter snow and chilling wind to a place surrounded by rocks, dragging Taker behind him like a chain as he went. In the sudden calm of the rocks, he uncovered the hole he had dug over many nights past when free of Taker's demands, knowing that the need for the burial site would come soon. He pulled out the straw and rushes that had kept the spot form freezing and lowered the still figure into the emptiness. Alone, he carefully covered the shroud with his warmest furs, and finally, tossed in a tattered honeycomb and some conical stones.
To Barca's surprise, all the rest of the Tribe were there. The Leader tossed in some red ocher, a Mother offered some faded flowers. A girl-child dropped some bright colorful pebbles into the hole. All of the Tribe gave something. Finally, they rolled many stones into the hole to prevent predators from disturbing the spot. All seemed to be there except for Taker.
Taker watched the procession with deep thoughts. "Why, Mother, should that child die"? she cried. "Why"? The gaunt figure merely pointed to the Cave, and they were returned to it. The Leader was older, Barca was older. There was another shrouded body. Taker watched in horror as a couple of the males lifted the shroud and simply flung it over the cliff. :Why is there that difference Mother?", she cried. Why is one honored and another cast to the scavengers. Her Mother-apparition did not answer, but Taker began to see the movements of the males in reverse order. The path led back to the warmest parts of the Cave, Taker's area… The shroud, in reverse movement went into Taker's furs. The furs then shifted slightly in distress as Taker died in them.. Alone and uncared for, with no one to care that she had amassed riches…
And no one was there to care for her in her final hours. Taker wept. She screamed her heart out at the indifference of the world to her death. And she wept again. And the gaunt bony figure of her dead Mother clutched at her. And she bewailed her fate, not noticing that the fleshless fingers of the apparition were growing fuller and more real.
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Collapsing into her horror, she lost all hope and went out of herself for a time. But the apparition held her close at heart. The Mother-apparition grew more bodied and substantial as Taker cried out her grief and regret to the universe. After a time, Taker's sobbing subsided, her pain and sorrow released. For a time, she existed again only in her Mother's womb, then was a suckling babe, then a tottering child. Through all, she had full awareness of her former life, and the possible lonely death to come.
On a day, she woke to a familiar world. Not many people get to relive their whole lives and make up for their mistakes, but Taker did. On this morning, Taker wakes up with full memory of the apparitions and dreams. She stops a child wandering by the Hearth and asks it what day it is. The child responds (proud in its new knowledge) that it is the Short Day of the Long Night, and Taker is amazed. She has relived, without being able of alter a single step, her whole life, and is finally free of the limitation. Crying with delight, she struggles from her warm furs and dances around in her hearth. Laughing through tears, she gives the child her accumulated honeycombs and tells it to go around and give one to everyone in the hearth. And she has bits of hardened maple sap to pass out, too! Taker is beside herself in joy.
And she has had a vision. Taking a stick of charcoal, she goes to the front of the Cave and begins to draw animals. Not the kind that the Shamans draw in the back spaces that are so dangerous to get to, but funny ones on the outside of the Cave entrance. She draws lions sleeping with lambs, squirrels curled up with chickadees, and fish sheltered by the sharks.
Leaving the Cave entrance, she rushes back to her hordes of stores goods. She encloses some of them in her finest small pieces of exotic furs, and some in regular hide wrapped in vine. Throughout the entire day, she moves among the hearths handing out her packages, and enjoying the exclamations of surprise as people unwrap the unexpected gifts!
Taker sleeps well that night for the first time in years, and when she awakes, her name is changed to :Giver:.
Ayla rides her horse quietly by the Cave where Giver lives. She had had a sense of unhappiness and distress in this direction earlier, but there is nothing here that demands her attention. Ayla and Whinney move on. But Ayla looks back at the Cave she has passed and knows that something unusual has happened there…
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Giver ended her life saving a child from a predator. The child lived, Giver did not. On a cold night, the longest one of the year, on the Short Day of the Long Night, a procession left the warmth of the Cave and headed out into the cold. Barca, the Leader, headed the solemn assembly. Marco carried a special fur and his best needle. One by one, all the people of the Tribe tossed special mementos into the place of Giver's burial. Barca offered red ocher into the grave site and said "goodbye dear mate, may you sleep undisturbed." Rocks were rolled onto the hole.
Ayla led Whinney around the site 3 times and led them all home through the driving snow..