Enemy Papers Read online

  When we climbed the step trail up the southern wall of the Great Cut ten days later, we stood upon the northernmost edge of the great plain of the Kudah. It was as flat as a griddle stone, thick with waist-high grasses, and dotted at great intervals by massive menosa trees. Shizumaat and I aimed our steps toward the south, stopping nights beneath the protection of the trees.

  In the dark, while I prepared a meal for us, Shizumaat would go out to study Aakva’s children spread out above us on the blanket of night. On one such night, Shizumaat came back to the camp, took a brand from the fire, and said to me, “Namndas, I am going to walk toward the north with this flame. When the light from this brand seems the same size as the lights from Aakva’s children, lift two brands above your head and wave them. Call my name, too.”

  “What are you trying to see?” I asked.

  My fellow student only smiled and said, “Let me see it, first, then I will tell you what I saw.”

  Shizumaat left, holding the burning stick above its head, and began walking toward the north. I studied the light, and did not let its flame leave my sight for more than an eyeblink. After one of those eyeblinks, though, I could not again pick out the flame from Aakva’s Children low on the horizon. I lifted the brands, waved them, and called out Shizumaat’s name. When it returned to the fire it brought with it a most fantastic, fascinating, and blasphemous idea.

  “Think of this, Namndas. If Aakva is a great fire circling our universe, and if Aakva’s Children are still more fires but at great distances, is it not possible that they circle other universes? And those other universes, might they not contain their own living beings?” Shizumaat looked up at the night sky. “For these answers I would suffer much. To meet those beings, see them, touch their thoughts, I would exchange my life.”

  I looked up and studied Aakva’s Children, and thought that the Sindie would lose much if Shizumaat’s idea was true. If it was true, then the child that was placed in the night sky by Aakva for me was neither placed in the sky by Aakva nor was it for me. I looked back at Shizumaat, and asked, “How will you argue this before the servants? What will you use for proof?”

  “Short of growing the wings that can take me before Aakva and its Children, I do not know. I will keep myself open to an idea.”

  After nineteen day’s walking south, we met a Kuvedah hunting party. Its servant, Gatu, gave us directions to the tribal camp and the tent of Buna, the tribe’s chief of servants. Gatu said that the chief of the tribe, Kangar, Master of Masters, was near its death, and that Buna ruled in Kangar’s stead.

  When we reached the camp, we saw the skin tents crowding both banks of a stream in a grove of menosa trees. We were directed to Buna’s tent, offered our respects, and were welcomed inside.

  Buna was very old and wore skins instead of cloth. Its skins were hooded over its head as though it could not keep warm. The chief of servants listened as we related Varrah’s charge to us. “A very wise one, your teacher,” said Buna. “The knowledge one acquires with the hands carries greater truths than the kind one acquires by exploring the inside of one’s own head.”

  We were shown where to put up our shelter, and when that was done, it was evening and we gathered with the others in the camp to watch the return of the hunters. Buna stood with us and in a low voice told us the significance of what we were seeing. “The tall hunter with the scar down its left arm, it is Haruda, the leader of the hunt and the greatest hunter of the Kuvedah.”

  “Haruda carries no game,” Shizumaat observed.

  Buna nodded. “That is because Haruda is the one who got the kills. It is for those who killed nothing to carry in Haruda’s kills.”

  “Buna, why is Haruda’s success at the hunt so much greater than the others this day?”

  “It is the same all days, Shizumaat. Haruda is a great hunter.”

  “What does Haruda do differently?” I asked.

  Buna held back the edge of its hood with one hand and peered at me. “Friend Namndas, it is a god-gift to Haruda.”

  “But,” I insisted, “what does Haruda do?”

  The old chief of servants grinned and said, “This is why you two are here, yes?” Upon that, Buna retired to a treegrove to meditate and give thanks to Aakva for the success of Haruda’s hunt.

  I felt Shizumaat pull on my skins as it said, “Come, Namndas. Let us answer your question.” Shizumaat and I followed Haruda and watched as the hunter barked orders at the less successful hunters and supervised the distribution of the game to the cookers and smokers. When Haruda was finished, it sat before its hut and began to clean its weapons and examine their stone points in case they needed dressing. Haruda looked up at the pair of us and said, “There are questions in your eyes, strangers.”

  “Yes,” answered Shizumaat. My friend introduced both of us to the hunter and Haruda nodded at a place before it. We sat and the hunter said, “Let us hear your first question.”

  Then my friend asked a question that surprised me. “Haruda,” began Shizumaat, “the size of the kill you return with every day; it could make you master of this tribe’s clan masters. Your ability to fill the mouths of the Kuvedah could fill your hands with power. Yet you remain a hunter. Why are you not the Kuvedah’s master of masters?”

  Haruda studied Shizumaat, then laughed. “Is it your mind that my success at hunting would also make me a success at ruling the Kuvedah?”

  Shizumaat thought. “No. It would not make you a success at ruling the tribe. Nevertheless, it is common to see those who turn the thing they can do into a means to force others to make them something they cannot do so well, but for which they will be well rewarded.”

  The hunter shook its head. “I do no such thing.”

  “Still, you could force your rule upon the tribe if you wanted. Is it simply that you do not want to rule?”

  The great hunter looked up from dressing a stone point and frowned at Shizumaat. “I am what I want to be, young one. The path to my happiness does not cross that of either Kangar’s or Buna’s. I have no desire to rule.”

  Shizumaat thought some more. “Haruda, do you not think that one graced with a godly gift is meant to rule, rather than grub for food?” I looked at my friend as though Shizumaat had gone mad. Why was it baiting this great hunter?

  Haruda stood and its skin changed from yellow to red-brown. “I hunt, young one with all the questions. I do not grub. And my skill at hunting I earned. It is no gift.”

  “One more question, Haruda.” I was torn between wanting to run from the hunter’s presence and strangling my friend.

  “Be quick,” ordered Haruda.

  “If your skill at hunting is no gift, what then do you do differently? Why do the other hunters bring in so much less game?”

  “They have their ways, and I have mine. My ways are better.” Tired of the questions, at last, the hunter stood, turned, and entered its hut.

  Silently cursing Shizumaat for offending Haruda, I waited until we returned to our shelter. A food preparer brought us some cooked meat, and by the time we had finished eating, my anger had passed. Still, when we stretched out to go to sleep, I asked, “Why did you question Haruda in that manner? Most of the things you asked had nothing to do with hunting.”

  “No, Namndas, but they did have everything to do with the hunter.”

  “What do you mean, Shizumaat?”

  “Now I know Haruda. I can now put aside studying Haruda and can concentrate my study upon what Haruda does.”

  Before Aakva’s light touched the sky, the hunters began stirring. We ate cold cakes and drank leaf tea with them and Shizumaat went to Buna and begged for us to be allowed to accompany the hunters. Buna laughed at Shizumaat. “The hunt is difficult enough without being burdened with two youths who never ran the grass.”

  “Namndas and I are to be denied this experience because we have no experience?”

  “Yes,” answered Buna.

  Feeling as though I should say something, I said, “But to get experience don�
��t we need to experience the experience?” Each word that came out of my mouth sounded more stupid than the one that preceded it. I was cursing my mouth when Shizumaat nodded approvingly at me.

  “Very well said, my friend.”

  “Impossible,” said Buna, despite my pithy argument.

  “I will take the pair of them with me,” said Haruda. We turned and looked. The chief of the hunt had been listening to us.

  Buna frowned, yet its lips seemed eager to smile. “Haruda, we rely upon your skill now more than ever that the game has thinned. These young ones would hamper you, would they not?”

  Haruda turned from Buna and looked through the tent opening at the other hunters as they packed their food and weapons for the hunt. “Many times I have claimed to be able to teach my hunting ways to the other hunters. Just as many times, they have all said that it is a god gift, and continued to bring in less each season. It is my intention to take these two soft temple creatures with me on the hunt, and by dark the tribe will proclaim Shizumaat and Namndas next to me as the greatest hunters on the Kudah. Perhaps then the other hunters will allow me to show them what I know.”

  The hunters, when they were told Shizumaat and I were to become great hunters, laughed at what they thought was Haruda’s joke. There was Buna’s prayer for a good hunt, then, upon Haruda’s silent signal, the hunters began walking east toward the mountain of the morning sun.

  By the time Aakva was above the mountain, its light making us shield our eyes, the hunters had broken into smaller parties and had gone in different directions. Shizumaat, Haruda, and I were left by ourselves. Shizumaat and I followed Haruda farther to the east until Aakva was a hand’s breadth above the mountain. It then stopped, turned about and faced us.

  “You wished to know what I do differently from the others. Today you shall learn. The most important thing you should learn is that I am no more talented or gifted than the other hunters. Why I bring down more game is simply the manner in which I hunt. First, though, we shall see how the others hunt.”

  Haruda crouched and began running in a great arc toward the left. We raced after it, and soon we began ascending a slight rise in the plain. Just before reaching the crest, Haruda crouched and Shizumaat and I crouched next to it. Haruda pointed down toward the west and we looked. “See, there? There in the stalks just before the trees. It is Vorusma’s head. In the distance there should be game.”

  I strained my eyes and could just make out the movement of stalks in the still air. The hunter called Vorusma crept silently toward the movement. Vorusma stopped as a horned head atop a long neck came up from the moving stalks. It was a fine, huge darghat. The head, almost without perceptible motion, surveyed the beast’s surroundings. When the creature’s gaze came to rest upon Vorusma, the beast reared up, turned, and fled. Vorusma hefted its weapons and followed at a dead run, trying to mount its spear in its throw-sling.

  I had never seen anyone run as fast as that hunter, but Haruda laughed and pointed as the darghat outdistanced Vorusma. The hunter did not quit running until it dropped into the stalks, exhausted.

  “Young ones,” said Haruda, “I could show you the same act a hundred times today, for this is how the Kuvedah hunts the darghat and has always hunted the darghat since before Daultha had its doubts. Sometimes the darghat is old and slow, sometimes stupid. Sometimes the others bring in game, but not often. Now I shall show you how Haruda hunts the darghat; and how you shall become great hunters.”

  We moved to a treegrove, and rested in the top of a thorn tree. Through its branches the plain could be seen for a day’s hard walk. After a few moments, the hunter pointed at a movement in the distant stalks. “There. Do you see it?”

  The tall grass moved and I faced the hunter. “I see the stalks moving,” I answered.

  Shizumaat whispered, “A darghat!”

  I looked back. In the distance I could the see the distinctive long neck and horned head rising above the tips of the stalks.

  Shizumaat looked at Haruda. “Do we give chase?”

  The hunter slowly shook its head. “If you want to sleep in the grass like Vorusma, you may do so.” The hunter pointed again at the darghat. “That one is testing the ground, sniffing the air for danger. If he thinks it is safe, he will summon the remainder of his herd. Sit quiet. Watch.”

  The darghat male examined the surrounding territory for many moments, and then tossed back its head and bleated. Far behind the creature, the stalks stirred, and twenty horned heads appeared above the stalks. Shizumaat clutched Haruda’s arm. “Now? Do we give chase now?”

  “No. We will wait. If the herd passes this way without danger, this is the way it will return. Mark their path. When the herd returns, we shall catch and kill a few.”

  “Haruda, how do you know this?”

  “I watch. I listen. I learn. This I have seen the darghat herds do thousands of times. Because of this, they will do so again.”

  When the herd had moved out of sight, Haruda had Shizumaat and I help in rigging snares across the path that the darghats had taken. The snares consisted of several fiber loops joined together at their draw-ends. Haruda explained. “Several of the darghat will become snared in the same set of loops and will fight and pull against each other until they are exhausted. Then we will move in with spears.”

  I studied upon it and saw in my mind that the simple scheme would work—had already worked, if Haruda’s reputation as a hunter was any evidence. But it seemed so simple. That is the way it happened, though. With the three of us wielding the spears at the tired, helpless darghats, our kill that day better than tripled the catch of any other three hunters that day. Among the greatest hunters of the Kuvedah, their reputations made in one day as Haruda had promised, were Shizumaat and Namndas.

  I said to Shizumaat that night, “It is a wonderful thing to be a great hunter, is it not?”

  “Our reputations will not last past tomorrow’s hunt, Namndas.”

  “Not last? Why?”

  Shizumaat giggled and said, “Haruda proclaimed to all of the hunters that it would take two fools and make them better hunters than all of the experienced hunters in the tribe just by showing them something new. Because of their beliefs, and because they were frightened to learn something new, they never wanted to see what Haruda had to show them. I think some of them do now. Most won’t, but a few will look at the new way. Haruda has put the proof to its claim.”

  The next evening showed me the truth of Shizumaat’s words. Most of the hunters passed off Shizumaat’s and my kills as trickery or magic. Four experienced hunters asked Haruda to show them what it had showed us, and before Aakva’s light again died in the west, great hunters in the Kudah were becoming as common as grass. There were, though, other things to learn, and perhaps other things to teach.

  Shizumaat’s experience with the hunters had it thinking many things over and asking many questions. It studied the things the Kuvedah did with and about everything. Why do the pregnant Kuvedah go to Kachine for advice? Why did the one called Vijnya make the best spear points? Shizumaat listened to the advice Kachine gave, and it watched Vijnya make its spear points. And Shizumaat studied every member of the tribe. Thus passed the year until Kangar’s death.

  All gathered at the bank of the stream to watch Kangar’s pyre illuminate the night, the flames sending the old master of master’s spirit to Aakva’s Children. Since the time of choosing the new master through combat had long since passed, the clan masters gathered before their own fire to select the new master of masters. From the stories we had both heard as children, such councils were notorious for their rancor and resulting feuds. This council, though, had only one name on its lips: Mantar, the wise leader of its clan. Buna cast the colored fires and read in them that Mantar’s rule would be long and prosperous.

  On the next morning, Buna talked to Shizumaat and me about places within the Kuvedah, to become teacher-ones, those who pass on lessons to the tribe’s young. To become a teacher-one of the Kuvedah we
would have to reveal a great truth at our first night before the fires of the meeting lodge. Most teacher-ones would reveal mystical truths about the wishes and ways of the gods and great figures of the past. Such truths were profound, and mostly impossible to question. I chose such a truth, and I spoke of Uhe and how it had to do war to find peace and how the peace it found, if kept, should keep the Sindie united and at peace for eternity.

  But Shizumaat chose to reveal a truth about the Sindie. It stood between the two fires, faced Banu and Mantar, and lifted its arms. Those in the meeting lodge quieted.

  “Each thing that we do, no matter how slight, is to achieve a goal. There are countless goals and countless ways in which we try to achieve them. A goal is the present altered in some way in order that the future will contain that which the present does not contain. To achieve the same goal, though, the ways we each choose are different because we each see by different lights. There are ways that bring the achievement of the goal quickly, ways that achieve the goal slowly, ways that achieve the goal poorly, and ways that achieve the goal not at all.”

  Shizumaat reached into its pouch and brought forth a long sliver of grainless stone. It held it in its hands so that all could see, “This is a stone spear point fashioned by Kijnya. Kijnya’s points are known by all the Kuvedah as the best. But Kijnya cannot make enough of them.”

  “This is true,” said Haruda, chief of the hunt. “If we had to rely only upon Kijnya’s points, we would starve.” There were laughs and agreeing nods from those seated around the fires.

  Shizumaat drew forth another spear point from its pouch and held it up. “This is a spear point fashioned by Uline. Most of the hunters tip their spears with Uline’s points.”

  The chief of the hunt nodded. “They are not as sharp as Kijnya’s points, nor as true, but Uline makes them quickly. The hunters can always obtain new points from Uline.”