Chapter 54 - Nyal's Story part 3

Twice a year, on the night of the solstice, the People of the River celebrated the death and rebirth of the warm season with a great ritual orgy. There were other observances in which they held orgies—weddings were a particularly festive occasion—but the orgies of the summer and winter solstices were the most highly anticipated events of the year.

Every member of the tribe who was chumsuhk was expected to attend. Chumsuhk meant "flowing water", but it actually referred to the fluids of the body. For women, the menstrual flow. For men, the production of semen.

Nyal and Eyya always attended the orgies. As elders, they were not required to participate. Nyal had not had her "flowing waters" in many moons, and neither had Eyya, but she went to prepare the brash while Eyya looked after the children.

Brash was a very precisely measured mixture of dried herbs and roots. Steeped in boiling water, it removed the inhibitions of the People, induced an ecstatic trance state, and filled the minds of the celebrants with powerful visions. It also caused the reproductive organs to become extremely engorged with blood. The effect could last for days, though usually it began to wear off about daybreak. In rare instances, it was also know to cause temporary blindness in men, though usually only one or two men had to be led back home after the orgy.

Fueled by the brash, the celebrants coupled for hours. In fact, they coupled until the world outside began to brighten once more. Nyal ground and mixed the ingredients of the brash until she thought her arm would break off at the shoulder, while Eyya, who had drunk far too much framash, passed out with the children at the back of the cave.

Nyal kept an eye on her mate all through the night, just to make sure no addled celebrant tried to fuck her while she slept. She nearly dozed off herself, once or twice, she was so bored. Orgies, when you are not an active participant, are not half as interesting as you might expect them to be. When the orgy had finally wound down for the night, and all of the People stumbled back to their homes, she asked her grandson to carry Eyya to the Siede.

Gilad, who was a dutiful grandson (her favorite, though she would never speak it aloud), bent and scooped the Fat Hand up.

"Whew!" he said. "She's getting big!"

"As you will, too, when you get old," Nyal replied.

The path that led to the Siede was winding and muddy. It had warmed the previous afternoon, melting some of the snow that had fallen in recent weeks. Nyal held onto his arm to steady herself on the slippery trail.

"Now you be careful with her!" she snapped at Gilad. "She's very old, and her bones are as fragile as dry sticks."

"Don't worry, Grandmother. I won't drop her," Gilad snorted, still glassy-eyed from the brash. His fat young cock bounced from thigh to thigh as he descended the forest path, still engorged. It also, Nyal judged, looked rather raw.

"Gently," Nyal said in the Siede, as Gilad lay Eyya down.

"You worry too much," Gilad laughed.

"And you worry too little, Grandson," Nyal retorted. She arched her back with a groan, her spine crackling. "Before you leave, take some of that ointment-- no, the small shell; yes, that one—and smear some on your pecker before the thing falls off."

Laughing, Gilad smeared the white ointment liberally on his cock. "Is that enough? I can't really see."

"Yes, that's fine" Nyal said. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to lie down. It's been a long night, and this old bird needs some rest. I'm not nearly as young as I used to be, you know."

Eyya slept until midday. She snored so loudly Nyal considered smothering her with the rolled up skin she used for a pillow, but she eventually dozed off. The old Neanderthal slept until her bladder, swollen to bursting from all the framash she had drunk the previous night, sounded the alarm.

She jumped to her feet with a cry and headed for the midden, the ditch at the edge of camp where their people went to eliminate. She had to hold herself just to keep from wetting.

Nyal woke at her cry, squawked as Eyya lumbered across her. "What is the matter?" she demanded. "Where are you going?"

"Oh! I have to pee!" Eyya whined.

"Now, you just wait," Nyal snapped, struggling to sit up. "You're still drunk from last night. If you'll give me a moment, I'll walk you to the midden."

"Hurry!" Eyya moaned. "I can't hold it any longer!"

"Just let me get my shoes on!"

But Eyya couldn't hold her water – she could never hold her water anymore. As Nyal threw off her sleeping furs, Eyya screeched and raced from their quarters.

Cursing under her breath, Nyala slipped her wrinkled old crone's feet into her boots. She pulled the laces to snug them tighter to her feet, then leaned her elbow against an outcrop of stone to lever herself up. She winced at the pain that seized her back. It felt like some devil cat had sunk its hooked claws into the meat of her and pulled in both directions. When she was sure of her balance, one hand on the wall, she pushed away and tottered after the mate of her mates.

The Siede was divided with hanging hides, which were draped from rickety frames of wood bound together with gut string. Nyal's apartment was near the entrance of the cave, which was good for a pee-pee bunny like Eyya, but not so good for an old arthritic like Nyal. It took her several minutes every morning just to work her swollen joints loose, and on moist days, her body howled in agony at the chore. If not for the framash, which she drank regularly, she thought she might wander off into the woods to die, the pain could get so bad.

Nyal pushed through the hide dividing her quarters from the rest of the elder commune and began to shuffle her way toward the opening of the cave. Through gaps in the other hangings, she caught little glimpses of her fellow residents: her fat brother-in-marriage Epp'ha, snoring in his bedding, tiny Herma and her blind husband, the sisters Deb and Neba, smoking merje beside the low licking flames of their hearth. She saw nasty old Ypp'ham assaulting the wrinkled remains of his manhood and averted her eyes with a disgusted snort.

Do they never tire of their little toy?

Even on the best of days, the Siede smelled of smoke and aged flesh, stale farts and urine-stained bedding.

Nyal's lips thinned as she leaned into the frigid wind that whistled through the cave's outer flap. The entrance of the cave was blocked off with hides like their individual quarters, but the stout winter wind had found a dozen gaps through which to pry its icy fingers. The chill currents blew through her lank hair, made her knees and shoulders throb.

She was reaching to catch the flapping entrance when she heard a cry ring out.

It seemed she already knew, even before she tottered outside, what had just transpired.

With a coldness in her heart that she could not attribute to the wind, she pushed her way out. The sun was bright, despite the cold, and glared off drifts of new fallen snow. It was a lovely sight, the sparkling white humps of snow, but the glare was still painful for rheumy old eyes adjusted to the dimness of the Siede.

Squinting, Nyal watched as several of the younger People went running toward the midden. They called to one another as they ran, making sounds of surprise and concern.

She limped after them, her lips pressing tighter and tighter together. The wind blew spicules of ice into her face. Icicles dripped from the bare limbs of the trees. Her heart was frozen, too.

She hoped her premonition was wrong, hoped she was just being silly, worrying about things that might never happen, but before she'd even made it halfway across the camp, several men came stumbling in her direction, Eyya cradled in their arms.

"Oh, you foolish old Fat Hand!" Nyala cried as the men carried her mate toward her.

Eyya was groaning, the right side of her body wet and slick with mud.

"She fell down, Grandmother," one of the men said, a tall, powerful looking hunter in a fur trimmed anorak. The man was not her grandson. "Grandmother" was just a title of respect. The young ones called all the elders Grandmother or Grandfather.

"I was shitting when she came to the ditch to empty her bladder," he explained. "I asked if she needed help, but she didn't answer. I turned away to give her some privacy, and, well, I guess she slipped. She fell all the way in, and couldn't get back up."

The ditch where the People went to eliminate their waste, near the tannery on the east side of the camp, was several feet deep, a sizeable fall for a very old woman.

So that isn't mud splattered all over her!

Nyal curled her upper lip and waved at the foul smell coming from her co-wife. "Why couldn't you wait a moment longer?" she asked Eyya querulously. "I said I was getting up!"

"I'm sorry, Nyala," Eyya moaned, her soft brown face contorted with pain. She gasped and clutched her hip. "Ooh, that hurts! That hurts so much!"

Her heart aching, Nyal stepped aside and motioned the men past. "Take her to our quarters in the Siede. I will look after the foolish old thing!" She followed, daubing at her eyes with the back of her bony arm.

That wind--!

There was nothing that could be done for her. The other elders gathered and helped Nyal bathe the woman and make her comfortable. They gave Eyya framash to sooth her pain, and piled covers on her for warmth. Most of their children came to see her in the days that followed. Breyya and Lethe helped tend to their mother while Nyal mixed healing potions for her friend. Nyal tried every dried herb, root and decoction she could think of, but she could only dull the pain. The Neanderthal woman grew weaker by the hour.

Those last few nights were long and terrible. Eyya could do naught but shiver. She shouted every time she moved. Nyal did not leave her side. She didn't even sleep. And when Eyya soiled herself like a baby, she cleaned her without complaint. When Eyya apologized, crying out of shame, Nyal shushed her. "You'd do the same for me, my love," Nyal said.

She couldn't bring herself to speak out loud all the things she felt in her heart. As unpleasant as it was to clean her, Nyal loved the old Neanderthal woman, and felt it was an honor to tend to her in her final hours.

Finally, about a week after falling and breaking her pelvis, Eyya passed into the Ghost World.

Nyal knew it was coming. Her companion was much too pale and weak. Eyya lay shivering by their fire, even though the Siede was stifling hot. It usually was. Old bones crave heat like grass craves sunshine. She had lain unconscious most of the day, and when she did wake, her eyes were filmy and rolled in their sockets as if she were lost in some dark tunnel and couldn't find her way back out of it.

Nyal lay beside her, spreading their sleeping furs across the two of them. She turned on her side, even though it pained her, so she could pet the fat old Neanderthal.

"Nyala?" Eyya croaked.

"I'm here."

"We've had a good life, haven't we?"

"Yes, we have."

"Do you remember how handsome and strong our husbands were when we were young?"

"Yes."

Eyya laughed softly. "I think we got the best ones. They pursued me so insistently! My father didn't know what to make of them, you know. The Gray Stone People did not live in group families like your people do. It was a bit of a scandal when I left home to marry two Fast Feet men, but I loved Gon so much, and Brulde was a very sweet man, too. So calm and thoughtful. Brulde was very much like my own people. It was easy to be with him."

Nyala shifted uncomfortably. She did not like to reflect on the past. It made her weepy and angry.

"You need to rest, dear one. How will you ever get better if you don't rest?"

Eyya's large brown eyes rolled toward Nyal. They seemed very clear all of a sudden. Their lucidity chilled Nyal to the bone.

Eyya smiled and said, "I won't be getting better, Nyala. I'm going tonight to dwell with Vestra. I'm ready to return to the Mother of All Things. I'm tired of living here on Doomhalde's back. But I will miss you, Nyala! Oh, I will miss you so much! I only hope to see my family there. All my dear ones the Demon Ghost killed. And Brulde, too. I hope to see him in the spirit world. Perhaps they're one and the same, your Ghost World and the realm of our sky goddess?"

Nyal shushed her, bringing the woman's feverish hand to her lips. "Perhaps," she said solemnly. "I suspect it might be."

Eyya's eyes shifted to some distant point. As she faded, she asked one last question: "Do you think our husband will come down from the mountain to claim me, Nyala?" She drew a whispery breath, more of a rattle, really. "I hope…" the Neanderthal sighed, so softly Nyal could barely hear her.

And then she was gone.