Chapter 56 - Nyal's Story part 5

After Eyya's spirit had departed for the Ghost World, as their extended family sat mourning around the old Neanderthal's body, Nyal took her grandson Gilad aside to speak with him in private. At her urging, they left the Siede together, Gilad holding the old woman's elbow, and moved to a little distance away. The others watched them depart with curious expressions, but no one questioned the matriarch of their family, one of the few advantages of being so old.

It was pleasantly warm that morning, the sun bright on all the snow. Nyal's bones were not aching quite as badly as they had been, which was a relief. She did not think she could have endured the aching of both heart and bones that day. They stopped beneath a great ash tree near the wetus of a young group family, and Nyal inclined her head toward her grandson.

"I want you to do a favor for me, Gilad," she said in a low voice, glancing suspiciously toward the forest.

"What is that, Grandmother?" Gilad asked.

"Your grandfather Gon has sworn to take us with him when we die," Nyal said.

"Thest-u'un-Mann, you mean," Gilad corrected her. Gilad was one of the foolish youngsters who had taken to believing in gods. It was an illness her people had caught from the Fat Hands, she believed, exacerbated by the magic powers her husband had displayed.

Nyal scowled, but didn't reprimand the young man. She did not like it when the People called her husband Thest-u'un-Mann. She did not think they should make more of him than he really was. Whatever her husband had become, his name was Gon.

"You remember how he came down from the sky and took Brulde?" Nyal asked, and when her grandson nodded, she said, "I have no doubt that he will come for Eyya as well. He has said that he would, and Gon was not a man who often broke his word. Tomorrow, we will prepare your grandmother's body and take her to the burial mound, but you will not escort her to the Holy Mound."

Gilad opened his mouth to protest, but Nyal raised her hand.

"You will not offend her spirit, Gilad. Eyya did not have a wicked bone in her body when she lived. Her spirit will not be vengeful. She'll know you're doing this as a favor to me. In truth, she'll probably bless you for it."

Gilad closed his mouth, accepting Nyal's words without further comment.

Nyal gazed up at the lad, feeling that old familiar twinge in her heart. The young man looked so like his grandfather it sometimes hurt to look at him. He had Brulde's somber eyes, the same full lips and narrow nose. If he'd had Brulde's curling blond hair, he would have been her husband's twin, but he did not. His hair was coarse and black, like his grandmother Eyya. He also had Eyya's fanciful imagination, which made him a little less than trustworthy, and which sometimes frustrated Nyal, who had little patience for silliness, but of all her grandchildren, Gilad was her favorite. He was also the tribe's best tracker. All who had Fat Hand blood possessed extremely keen senses. It was the reason she'd chosen him for this task.

"When Gon comes down from the mountains for her, you will be waiting on the Mound of Ghosts. I want you to track him, if you can. I want you to find out where he dwells."

Gilad nodded. "I will do as you wish, Grandmother," he said, "only tell me why you need to know where Thest dwells."

Nyal frowned. She was silent a moment, pondering his question. Finally, she admitted, "I'm not really sure, boy. I loved that man once. I still love him. I suppose I'm just curious. I'd like to look out on the mountains and know which one he watches from. It would comfort me."

"All right, Grandmother. I'll do it," Gilad said.

The next morning, as Nyal, her daughters, and her daughters' daughters prepared Eyya's body for burial, Gilad entered the Siede and motioned to her. Nyal nodded, and the handsome young man ducked back through the hangings, departing for the Mound of Ghosts.

Nyal smiled softly to herself as she applied a scented oil gently to Eyya's cheek.

"Where is he going?" Nyal's granddaughter Ammi asked.

"Don't you worry about that," Nyal said brusquely. "Now hand me that ochre. Your grandmother always painted her face, and we're not letting her leave without all her pretty colors."

Gon came as he said he would, and after he took Eyya away, Nyal returned to her apartment in the Siede and sat down to wait for Gilad. One of her sons built up her fire, and her daughters brought her food and some framash to ease her pain. The temperature outside had plummeted after the sun set. All the snow and ice that had melted during the day had refrozen to a slick glaze. She could smell the cold wind blowing off the glaciers to the north, a scent she had once found comforting, but it only reminded of pain now

Once or twice that night, she forgot herself and spoke out loud to Eyya. As soon as she did it a jolt when through her body, and she scowled in anger at herself. Eyya was dead!

Perhaps you speak to her spirit, a voice whispered in her head. It was her own voice, trying to comfort her, but she did not want to be comforted. She wanted to be miserable and angry. Her beloved Eyya deserved no less.

Her bones sang in agony as she waited for Gilad. The opening of the cave was lined with icicles like a mouth full of glinting fangs. It worried her, the cold. Surely, Gilad would come to see her as soon as he returned. He must not have made it back to camp yet.

It frightened her to think he might be injured, or worse, dead, and all because she was curious. The world outside their village was a mysterious and dangerous place, even for a man whose eyes were as keen as her grandson's. There were bears and hungry wolves out there, all prowling the benighted world like evil spirits.

And more, she thought. There are creatures like the devil spirit who chased away the Fat Hands. There are creatures like my Gon.

It was a terrible, spiteful thought, and Nyal realized she hadn't just been curious of her strange husband's hiding place in the mountains. She was jealous, too. Jealous that Gon had come and taken Brulde and Eyya away. Taken them to be with him, leaving her here all alone.

It was silly and it made no sense, but women cannot always help what their hearts feel.

He'll come for you soon enough, Old Weed, she scolded herself, and the thought made her smile.

She finished her framash. The soporific effect of the tea had dulled the throbbing of her joints, relaxed her muscles and made her drowsy. She lay down near her fire, wrapping herself in her furs, pulling them tight around her. The furs smelled faintly of Eyya. It was not a pleasant smell—she had never liked the way the Fat Hand people smelled—but it was comforting to her all the same. She could almost pretend, her eyes shut and the sounds of the Siede droning around her, that her Eyya was still with her. She had only to reach out and her fingers would find her co-wife's springy flesh.

In fact, Nyal pretended they were all still alive and with her: Brulde, Eyya… and even Gon, who was a man again and not some whited caricature of a human being. Half drunk on framash, Nyal pretended they were all still young and vital.

She promised herself she wouldn't sleep. She would lie awake until Gilad returned, then squeeze him for information. But she was so tired. Her eyelids felt as though heavy stones had been lashed to them, dragging them to her cheekbones. When she dozed sometime later, she dreamed that they were all making love together, as they had when they were young, full of sap and urgent needs. She did not want to wake until Gilad was poking her on the shoulder.

"Grandmother? Grandmother, wake up."

"What?"

"Grandmother!"

"What!" Nyal cried, eyelids twitching open.

Gilad was crouched down beside her. His clothes were wet and his nose was red and runny. He had the high, bright flush of someone who'd just come in from the cold. He sniffed, smiling at her as she struggled to a sitting position.

"Did you see him?" Nyal asked eagerly. "Were you able to track him to his lair?"

He nodded, and she saw that he was shivering. Pushing her curiosity aside for a moment, she limped to the stone shelf where she kept her food and drink. There was a little under a fourth of the framash left in the gourd her daughters had brought her, but still plenty of meat. She hadn't had much of an appetite that evening.

"Here," she said, passing the lad the gourd. "Drink. Warm yourself by the fire. Are you hungry?"

"Y-y-yes," Gilad chattered.

She passed him the deer meat, too.

She returned to her hearth and built up her fire. "Take off those wet clothes," she said, as the flames began to jump and snap. "Hang them over here so the fire can dry them."

Gilad did as he was told, plucking all of his clothes off until he stood before her as naked as the day he was born. His prick, she noted with amusement, had nearly shriveled away in the cold. Not that she cared overly much. For her, pricks were about as interesting as noses—though Gilad's was quite a lot larger than most she had seen. Just like his grandfather, she thought.

When Gilad had filled his belly and warmed his body by the fire, she questioned him. They spoke low because it was still night, the Siede humming with the snores and moans and farts of her neighboring tribesmen like a nest of very old, very phlegmatic hornets.

Gilad told her how he had hidden on the Mound of Ghosts, a steep and thickly wooded ridge to the south of the village, and waited for Thest-u'un-Mann to appear. He didn't see his grandfather when Gon flew through the treetops toward the village, he whispered, but he heard him pass.

"It sounded like a strong wind blowing through the trees," he said. "I heard the limbs clattering, and the sound of snow and ice falling to the ground, and then the forest was silent again."

"What happened then?" Nyal pressed. Her ancient heart was rattling in her chest. She could feel it thumping in her throat, pulsing in her temples.

"I waited," Gilad answered. "I waited for a long time. I thought maybe he had passed a different way, and then I heard him again, and I saw something flash through the forest above me."

It was impossibly fast, he said. For a moment, Gilad thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him. The sun had dazzled off the snow all morning, leaving pale green afterimages floating in his vision. He had whipped around as soon as the figure blurred past overhead, and then it paused, and the Ghost Who Is a Man had glanced back over its shoulder at him.

"He just stood there on the bough of a large tree, holding Grandmother Eyya in one arm and an overhanging branch with the other," Gilad said. "I could feel his eyes on me. We were close enough that I could make out the expression on his face."

Gilad faltered, looking at Nyal solemnly. He suddenly looked very young.

"Yes…?" Nyal said.

"He frightened me!" Gilad confessed in a rush. He looked down at his hands, ashamed and embarrassed. "His eyes shined in the shadows of the branches. They were like the eyes of a cat. And I could see great eyeteeth curving out over his bottom lip. His face was white as a corpse, and his cheeks were very gaunt, as if he hadn't eaten in months." He looked at Nyal then, his own eyes very wide and gleaming. "He wanted to eat me!" he rasped. "I could see it in his face. I could see it in the way his muscles tensed. He wanted to eat me, and he was using all his will to resist the temptation."

"What did he do?" Nyal whispered.

"He just stood there a moment in the trees, his body straining toward me. Then he looked down at Old Eyya, and that terrible look of hunger passed away from his face. I could tell that he had conquered his desire to harm me. I was going to live! He didn't speak or motion to me in any way. He didn't even look at me. He just turned and flew on through the forest, flitting from limb to limb like a bird, but so fast it was hard for my eyes to follow."

"But did you see where he went, Gilad? Did you find his lair in the mountains?"

"Yes, that's what took me so long to get back. His lair is in one of the big blue mountains to the south. It is a peak the hunters call Old Stone Man."

"Old Stone Man," Nyal repeated, shaking her head. She did not know one mountain from the other.

"The hunters call it that because it has two stone outcroppings that look like an old man's nose and a chin." He turned and pointed toward the entrance of the cave. "It is directly south of the village, beyond the Mound of Ghosts and the Sinking Bog. I can show you which one it is in the morning, when the sun has risen. You can see it from here."

Nyal nodded. "Yes, I would like that."

"I couldn't keep up with him after that, but I could follow his trail easily enough. I could see where his passage through the treetops had disturbed the ice. Sometimes he came down from the trees and ran across the earth, too. His footsteps were spread very far apart."

And he did show her the mountain.

He slept that night in the place where Eyya had slept—a great comfort for Nyal, who had not slept alone in a very long time. He rose early the next morning, while Nyal was boiling some tea over the coals of her hearth, put his clothes back on, and walked Nyal to the entrance of the cave.

"There," he said, pointing to the south. "That is the mountain we call Old Stone Man. Do you see the outcrop of rock that looks like an old man's nose?"

Nyal squinted, the morning sun glaring in her eyes, but finally she had to shake her head. "No. I am sorry, Grandson. These eyes are too old and weak to see that far. I see a mountain, but no stone nose jutting from the side of it."

Gilad laughed and hugged the old woman to his side. "That is all right, Grandmother. Just know that he is there, and that he watches over us. That is enough, isn't it?"

She let her grandson hug her, a thing that she was not overly fond of. She had never liked men being overly familiar with her. Not even her husbands. But Gilad was a good boy. He meant no disrespect. She let him squeeze her, and even patted the boy on the back with a rueful laugh.

"I suppose so," she said.

But she was not so sure. She was not so sure the knowing was enough.