Gods of Green Mountain Read online

  Thoughts of tortars, of menu, brought his own hunger into the forefront of his mind. A mind strangely light-headed, so that everything felt unreal, and dreamlike, and with effort he pulled his thoughts into focus. He sighed with the overwhelming ramifications each new day brought, and turned to awaken the puhlets. Startled, his violet, almost blue eyes opened wide, not able to give credence to what they registered! The puhlets were gone, every one! Dead? Eaten by the warfars? No blood did he see—only a trail in the soft snow, hoof marks, theirs. Again he was surprised as he examined the prints. Musha had led the herd away! His Musha! His most dependable animal had disobeyed him…taken his wives and led them away!

  Hurriedly Far-Awn strapped his bag of supplies on over his coat and set off at a trot to follow where the puhlets led. Many times he stumbled and fell before he remembered he hadn’t eaten. He didn’t realize how many days had passed since he ate last—he thought only one night had gone by, not four. He fumbled in his coat pocket for the sole remaining piece of cheese, now gone stale, and ate only half the small piece, savoring the cheese in his mouth as long as he could, forbidding his thoughts to linger on what he would eat when this last bit of cheese was gone.

  On and on the puhlets led him, down from the highlands, into the low-rolling plains. Never deviating from a set direction, the puhlets traveled in single file. So well did he know his animals, he could recognize each footprint and name the animal it belonged to. It was a set course, all right, true as an arrow, aimed directly at Bay Sol, that terrible land of sands and burning heat! It was all so reminiscent of that time two years previous, when the six female puhlets had entered the ice plains of Bay Gar.

  Far-Awn left the snow covered borderlands behind him. The ground went from hard to soft, powdering beneath his feet. Grainy sharp sands sifted into his hide, fur-covered shoes. He began to perspire. He stopped and took the bag of supplies from his shoulder, and removed his light, but too-hot coat. Again he strapped on his pack but left the fur coat on the sand, weighted down with several heavy rocks so the winds wouldn’t blow away so valuable an article.

  Weak with hunger, and dry from sudden thirst, he stumbled into the desert wasteland. Scorching hot winds blew incessantly, seeming to suck every drop of moisture from his skin. Constantly he tipped his water bag to his lips, but never was his thirst satisfied, no matter how empty the bag became. He told himself to go easy on the water, to resist the urge to drink…there was no more water here. He licked his lips to moisten them, until his lips became parched and cracked, and his tongue felt like cotton. He swallowed, and there was nothing to relieve his burning throat.

  The two suns were high, blazing down on him with baleful, sneering, orange eyes, one behind, and one before. His twin short shadows fought for domination, trying to confuse him. He thought about lying down in the shade and resting awhile. There was not one lengthy spot of shade the suns would allow. “This is a hellish place for sure,” he thought aloud, and heard his voice as cracked and old. If my father could see me now, he thought, he too would sneer. There goes my fool son, off again on an idiot journey, bringing back with him only a flower to reward his effort…

  Far-Awn sobbed, wishing for his mother’s arms, for the touch of her hands cool on his fevered brow. He thought of the lovely Santan who never looked at him, only his brothers. It wasn’t his fault his skin wasn’t as green as it should be, or his hair wasn’t as red, or the fact he stood too tall and moved too quickly, and he hated to wear a grim, set expression like everyone else’s. If I live through this experience, I won’t dream, laugh, sing…or even think, he vowed to himself. I’ll conform…I’ll be just like everyone is…sad. But even as he thought this, he knew it was a vow he couldn’t keep.

  The long day grew old. The first sun neared the place of its setting. Violently the sky flared into brilliance, refracting myriad colors down on the sharp, glittering sands. But Far-Awn’s vision was already bedazzled from too much brightness, too glazed with fatigue, with hunger, with thirst to see the first sun’s magnificent leave-taking. His bodily needs cried too loudly for relief for Far-Awn to notice anything but its demands. Far behind him on the trail lay his empty water bottle.

  So this was the fabled Bay Sol! The eternal desert of heat, dry, scorching winds, and suns, suns, suns! Nothing moved, except for the sand blowing. Nothing grew, nothing lived…not a leaf, not a petal, not a twig. There wasn’t even an ant, or a gnat crawling on the ground, or a bird in the sky. There was no sound but the whiz of the wind blowing the sands. Not once had Far-Awn heard of a traveler surviving the desert heat. Why was he here? He tried to recall, but he couldn’t.

  Instinct guided him, kept his eyes fastened to the puhlet trail, following blindly, without conscious volition. He fell again and again, and always gained his feet and stumbled on, gasping, half-crying, desperately needing relief from the single sun still remaining. Again he fell. This time, as he struggled to rise, his unfocused eyes fell upon five long shadows in a file. Shade! What he needed, what he wanted, what he had to have! You see, you see, he told himself, when you reach a point of desperation, the Gods do provide! Then his glazed eyes lifted and fixed upon what made the five shadows on the hot burning sand…and he beheld the most horrible sight he could ever expect to see. He tried to blink away the vision—for it had to be that! His eyes were deceiving him…some devilish trick caused by that cursed sun! But after he had blinked, and shook his head, and fought to clear his reasoning and his sight, the five shadows were still there when he looked again—and the five standing objects that cast them. He swallowed over the lump of horror in his throat.

  Five withered, grotesque things projected from the sand, cork brown and splintered dry as any dead wood…even so, with their features blurred and fusing together, those five things were still recognizable as once living and moving human beings. Far-Awn had never seen one of his kind in this state before. The shock numbed him. He lay sprawled on the burning sand, his head raised, his mouth gaped open, his eyes wide, as if about to scream. The hot air entered his mouth and stole what moisture he still had left, so he couldn’t have managed a scream if he had tried. Who were they? Why were they here? They were all facing the direction from which he had come. Could they possibly be from the lower borderlands? Could they have traveled so far, only to give up and root themselves—to die—so near their goal?

  As he stared, speculating on the obscure meanings of why those five men were there, dead, withered brown, a gusting strong wind blew and buffeted the figures. One listed and fell against another—then, in a row, the mummified men all collided, one against the other, shattering to pieces as they fell to the ground. And before Far-Awn’s very eyes, the dry limbs, heads, torsos powdered into dust that was swiftly swept away. Now there was nothing left to show they had ever existed and made a valiant attempt to reach the upper borderlands. Staring down at the sand, Far-Awn wondered how many had died in such attempts as this? “All those dust storms the hot winds blew,” he cried, “dust that comes into our sod homes, through the cracks, crevices, under the door…Is this the dust of the dead? The dust of millions upon millions of dead?”

  The fantasy of this caused Far-Awn to jump to his feet! He ran forward like one demented! “Is this to be my fate too? No! Never will I root my feet in the sand and give up and wait to die! I might die, here, today, or tonight—but I won’t be rooted, not in that accepting way!”

  He ran, stumbling, falling, tearing the clothes from his body, not once thinking of turning back. Not considering that at all. He was here for a reason—the puhlets were leading him—but why enter so far where nothing grew? Into his heat-crackled brain came the thought that animals were in some ways wiser than men…they held on to their instinctual behavior and trusted it, never doubting as men did.

  He fell for the last time and couldn’t rise. He crawled on all fours, like an animal, panting with the effort of every inch gained. The second sun sank behind the horizon. Once more the sky blazed with a kaleidoscope of shifting, intense, an
d vibrating colors that were caught and kept in the crystals that abounded everywhere.

  With sunlight gone, refrigerated darkness came quickly, closing down on the burning sands. The hot winds chilled. Exhausted, Far-Awn sprawled flat on the sands and slept. Unaware he was cold; unaware he was hungry; unaware he was near the limit of endurance, and very close to death. Before his last consciousness left him, he was aware of only one thing: “At least I did not bury my feet and ankles in the sand to wait for this final, everlasting sleep. I am still a human, almost a man.” A whisper of pride came with this.

  For the first time in his young life, he had a dream—a nighttime dream! He saw Santan the young and beautiful coming slowly toward him, holding out her arms, with a soft shining look in her eyes. What was there about that look that so enchanted him? Oh, he dreamily thought in his sleep, she is looking at me the way my mother looks at my father. It is that mysterious thing called love between man and woman that everyone was so ashamed to feel.

  When I am a man it won’t be that way for me and my beloved. We will feel proud of whatever it is men and women do to make babies. Certainly they didn’t go about it in the same way as the animals? Nobody had ever told him. No one spoke of shameful things like that. No one had time to talk…maybe that was it. It had to be it.

  But as he dreamed on and on, his body woke up as if from a long, long dream, and he would never need to be told the ways of loving a woman. His lips curved upward in his sleep. How dumb not to have known all along, when his body had known since the day he was born.

  He changed that night in his dark sleep of desperation. He grew up and became a man and never knew it. He accepted what he was, different, and never questioned the why of what he was.

  He was, therefore he was important.

  Otherwise, why else would he be allowed to live at all?

  9

  The Gift of the

  Star-Flowers

  The first sun dawned as spectacular in its awakening as it was on leaving. Bemused and weak, Far-Awn sat up and looked around him, confused as to where he was. He lifted trembling hands and rubbed at his eyes, unable to believe that he had survived the night. How? The cold of the darkness should have shriveled him brown, and still he lived. It was then he saw the many hoof marks on the sand. His puhlets had come while he slept and lain down beside him, protecting him from the bitter cold of the desert night. Now they were gone again. He swelled with love for them, grateful they had saved him, but was disappointed they had left without waiting for him to awaken.

  Quivering with weakness, he staggered to his feet, and fumbled in his pants pocket for a crumb of any kind—forgetting he had already searched there yesterday. He had to drag his legs, so weighted they were. He sagged forward like an old man, following still the trail of the puhlets.

  Their contented rilling came to his ears long before he saw them and made him laugh. His laughter sounded like madness, crackling with insanity and foolishness. Almost crawling, he made it to the top of a sand dune—and on the other side, there they were, all grazing in contentment. They saw him, looked up, and rilled softly in welcome. Musha separated from the females and ran to him. His throat too dry for speech, Far-Awn patted the giant animal’s head, and clung to Musha’s thick fur as the big, strong male almost dragged him to where the females grazed on the white flowers and green leaves that sprouted from the sand.

  The dainty females, fluffed out with white, insulating fur, ate with such obvious pleasure that Far-Awn released his hold on Musha, and fell to his knees, and quickly stuffed a handful of the white blossoms and green leaves into his own ravished and parched mouth. Before he could stop eating, he had greedily consumed several dozen handfuls.

  “Why,” he said to no one in particular, “the pretty little things taste good!” They had no definable flavor that he could identify, but it was pleasing. What he ate satisfied his hunger, and most remarkably, satisfied his thirst as well! Far-Awn sat back on his heels, reflectively staring at the flowers growing all around him. For the very first time in his life he had a full stomach—one that didn’t plead for more. It felt odd to be so satisfied, so full, without the perpetual ache for more food. He had just eaten, for a fact, the most enjoyable meal of his life! Even sitting here in the sizzling heat, and frying winds, he felt good, happy, expectant. Suddenly he began to laugh—laughter that doubled him over to his knees. Oh, how astonished his father would be to see where he was, sitting in the middle of Bay Sol, and laughing! Two young puhlets came and nuzzled his neck, bringing him back to reality.

  The flowers had been here, yet those five men had died. They hadn’t found them because they had entered Bay Sol without puhlets to guide them. Far-Awn put a loving arm over Musha’s shoulders, as the big animal was standing close, watching his master with large calm eyes, deep with ageless wisdom. Far-Awn met those eyes, trying to delve into just what Musha was thinking, and trying to express without words. “You are not dumb after all, are you?” asked Far-Awn with new insight. “You are an animal, but you have a brain, and you can think. All these centuries we have taken your kind for granted, and used you in any way that suited our purpose. How can you look at me so kindly?”

  Musha made a soft rilling noise deep in his throat, giving Far-Awn a long meaningful look that the boy tried to fathom; then Musha put his nose to the flowers and began to eat.

  “I know what you want, Musha,” said Far-Awn in deep sincerity. “From now on, life for you and your kind will be different, I’ll see to it.”

  Yes, from now on life would be different for all of them, humans and animals alike. The clever puhlets had found food here on the desert wastelands, just as they had discovered forage on the ice of Bay Gar. Never again would he allow one single soul on El Sod-a-Por to call them stupid again! Why the puhlets were smarter than all of them put together. In gratitude he ran to each animal and caressed it. All the time food was available to all of them. All they had needed was the courage to journey into the unknown and find it!

  It was then Far-Awn plucked one small, star-shaped blossom and studied it closely. It had five short white pointed petals around a centering cluster of multicolored seeds. Each minute centering seed was of a different hue, and each radiated its own vibrating light. The opalescent white petals glowed with their own luster, and even the green leaves shimmered with iridescence. It was exactly the same flower the puhlets had found in Bay Gar, and he had carried so long in his pocket. All that time he could have planted those seeds!

  Far-Awn sat there in the hot sun, unfeeling of the heat and the winds, as the second sun came up and added its heat and bedazzling light. Thoughts like bees whirled in his brain. The star-flowers grew without water in the terrible heat of the desert. They grew without sunlight in the dark ice of the winterlands. Just what would they do with water, with sunlight, with fertilizer to nourish them? Marvelous visions flashed before his eyes…daydreams…things he had seen but never expected to materialize.

  Flooding with monumental excitement and anticipation, Far-Awn pried a plant loose from the sand, exceedingly careful not to damage the extraordinary long roots that webbed out in every direction. Amazing to see such a small plant with roots thirty times its growth above ground. And when he felt the meshy root growth, they felt damp and cool to his hot hand.

  His shirt was hanging in shreds, so he didn’t feel the loss when he tore it even more and used the strips as strings to tie bundles of the uprooted plants in the only shade that was available—and that was under the very bellies of the twenty puhlets. He was extremely worried that the hot burning light and intense heat would dry out the delicate, hairlike roots before he reached the borderlands. Far-Awn didn’t know then that it wouldn’t have mattered.

  In his arms, he carried as many of the plants as he could, and turning about, he headed back, toward home, toward his father, his mother, his brothers and his one sister.

  Funny how quickly he reached the cave, when it had taken him so long to trail the puhlets into the heart of
Bay Sol. “I must hurry home with these plants,” he said to Musha, “for they are dying there from starvation, and that blizzard will surely have wiped out all the crops…”

  He prepared for the journey, and was ready to leave, when a female puhlet began the mournful rilling that meant her birthing time was near. Frantically Far-Awn put aside his plan to speed quickly home with the life-giving flowers and leaves. He had made a promise to Musha, to all of the puhlets, and he couldn’t desert them now. All alone, he assisted nineteen females through the ordeal, many of which were in their first labor. Every young puka came out into his hand violet and shining, and exceptionally strong. In no time they were nursing, and running about all shining and naked.

  While Far-Awn waited for the pukas to grow their yellow-green fuzz, he set about digging holes and planting seeds from the white star-flowers. Some he planted where they would receive full sunlight all day. Some seeds went into the ground where they would receive only partial sunlight, and still others he planted in the dim shade of the cave. A few he carried down into the deepest, darkest cavern he could find, and planted the seeds there. Instinctively he knew the plants would survive anywhere he put them—for hadn’t he found them twice in the ultimate extremes of nature?

  The pukas took on the yellow-green fuzz, but they were still too young to make the long journey back to the farmlands. Determined to use this time of waiting to the fullest advantage, Far-Awn experimented with the little plants that sprouted quickly from his agriculturing efforts.

  He treated each bed of star-flowers differently. Some he gave a full draft of water each day, some only received a light sprinkling, others he deprived of any water at all. Some he lavished with water, enough to drown them. On a wall of the cave he chiseled the date.