FSF, May 2008 Read online

Immortal Snake noticed that his sister had abandoned demureness and was now smiling warmly at their guests. A strange excitement stirred his spine. He said, “We understand.” He turned to his slave companion. “You had better begin if our guests will have to leave early."

  Tribute of Angels said, “Your wish creates my voice."

  That night Tribute of Angels told a story of the first people. In the beginning there was only mud and stones, and the bright sky, and trees as thick as houses, and flowers in colors no one remembers. Then there were lions, and spiders, and squirrels, and nightingales, but no people. One morning a leopard came home from hunting all night to discover that an eagle had killed his wife. The leopard had no idea why the eagle would do this, only that his wife's body lay in pieces on the dirt. He roared and wept and begged her to come back to him but it was no use. After a day of sorrow he flung his wife's remains on his back and left the open fields and woods that had been their home.

  The leopard walked for nine days and nights, frightened to sleep lest crows and jackals and ants take away more pieces of his wife. Finally he came to a desert, and a dream of an oasis. There was nothing there, really, but if the leopard closed his eyes he saw bright trees, and a waterfall, and herds of antelope who had never heard of leopards. He set down his wife's body alongside what he imagined was a pool and lay down next to her. Then he wept and wept until there was nothing left of him but spotted skin over a pool of tears. The tears changed the dirt to salty mud, and out of this mud the first people stood up, naked and frightened, with no idea of how they would live.

  For generations people traveled from desert to forest, from islands to mountains, frightened, stealing whatever food they could from the animals, hiding in caves or the tops of trees. They traveled from the north to the south, from the east to the west, and everywhere they were hungry and helpless and hunted.

  One night a woman with three sons hid in a muddy hole in the Earth, a place not much different from any other except that the walls flickered with black and yellow light. Though she did not know it, she had found her way back to the cave of the dead leopards. That night she dreamed of the sky.

  Usually her dreams were of running, and the teeth of wild beasts, but now she dreamed that she sat upon a rock high on a mountain and looked up at a sky that flowed like blue water over the peaks of the world. In all her life she had never dared to stare up like that—what if a pack of dogs attacked her children, what if the other women picked all the roots before she got to them? But here, in her dream, she stared and stared, and the more she looked the more she could glimpse a different world on the other side.

  She woke up with sorrow in her throat. All day she thought of the dream, while she dug in the dirt for worms, while she searched for bubbles of rainwater that would not make her too sick. That night she rushed to feed her sons so she could return to sleep. Lying there on the mud floor, her body sighed with pleasure as she found herself safely back in the dream.

  This time she saw creatures in the world beyond the sky. Some were two-legged like people, except that they had beaks like birds, and sometimes wings that flashed out from their shoulder blades. And they stood upright, their backs straight, unafraid. There were other creatures, brightly colored bulls and horses. They looked solid yet they also seemed made of music and light.

  That morning she woke up in tears and wept all day long. As evening approached she did everything possible to avoid falling asleep, for she could not bear to visit that world and wake up in this one. She could not help herself, she fell asleep before the moon rose.

  Instead of sorrow, however, she found hope, for this time the dream was different. She was not alone but stood in the center of a crowd of people. Under her command the people constructed a stone pyramid that allowed them to climb close to the sky world. With stone knives painted with pictures of the sky creatures they slashed their arms and flung the blood above their heads. Hawks and eagles raced for the blood, and as they fought for it their beaks and wings slashed open the sky.

  The creatures of light and music poured down into the world. They raised up the people and fed them sky food so that the people would live forever and never be hungry. They showed the people how to make buildings out of songs, graceful houses where everyone could rest comfortably, temples that spiraled up into the sky so the people could meet with the sky creatures and praise them and receive their blessings.

  When the woman woke up she jumped to her feet, summoned her boys, and began a journey to tell everyone her dreams, and what they all should do to open a door for the sky people to enter their world. At first no one believed her. They chased her with rocks or tried to take her sons away to make them dig for food. Slowly, the woman's insistence began to convince people, first one or two, then larger groups. Soon she had several hundred people, enough to build a pyramid to open the sky.

  Everything happened just as in her dream. When they climbed the pyramid they could see the thinness of the sky, see and hear and even smell the world beyond. They cut their arms and flung their blood upward with great drama and energy. Sure enough, there came the birds, and they fought each other in their hunger, and the claws and beaks tore open the sky, and the creatures of light and music entered through the gash. Soon the Bright Beings stood on the pyramid, towering over the people.

  And then it changed. Instead of giving instruction and blessing, the creatures of light and music began to snatch up the people and lift them to their mouths, where teeth like icicles broke them in pieces.

  The people screamed and knocked each other down as they tried to run or just tumble down the pyramid. Some jumped off, for they'd rather crush themselves on the rocks, a death they understood, than be swallowed in dark ice.

  The woman who had brought this disaster was in fact one of the few who escaped. She reached the ground and ran as hard as she could, slipping on blood, weaving between pieces of bodies. She kept running until she came to the shelter where she'd hidden her three sons.

  If life was hard before, now it was much worse, for as well as animals and cold and sickness and hunger the people had to hide from the Bright Ones.

  Time passed, and the woman did little but wail and wave her hands, so that her sons had to carry her on their backs as they moved from one hiding place to another. Finally the oldest son said, “Enough! We need to fight back.” On their travels he'd seen how a certain kind of rock was changed with fire to become hard and shiny, with sharp edges. Now he found some and took it to a bubbling volcano where he could heat it and then work it with other stones. Then he cooled it in the evening rain. He did this during the new moon, when power becomes strong. When the weapon was ready he stood up in an open field and challenged the Bright Beings, thinking if he could cut open just one or two they might respect the people and keep away.

  It was hopeless. They broke his shiny weapon like a toy, then tore him apart, sounding laughter through the hills.

  The second brother decided that the first had been a fool to challenge the Powers. He climbed a hill with his head down like a submissive dog, making sweeping gestures with his arms as if to clear away his unworthiness before he even took a step. When he reached the top he threw himself face down on the ground and called out, “Great Ones! Creatures of music and light. Spare me and my family and I will show you where the people are hiding."

  The red and black horses shook their manes. The golden bulls stamped their feet. The one with the head of a hawk said, “Why do we need you? We can smell humans whenever we want them.” And then the second brother too was torn apart.

  The youngest one had heard and seen what happened to his brothers. Now he slipped quietly down to where his mother was hiding. The mother shrieked and hit the flats of her hands against the sides of her head when she realized two of her sons were gone. The youngest grabbed her wrists and leaned forward until he could feel her breath. “Be quiet,” he said, “or I will cut your throat.” She stared at him, then cowered silently against the wall. When he told her to give
him her clothes she immediately obeyed.

  With his mother's clothes under his arm the boy went to a deep cave he had discovered at the foot of the pyramid where the people had opened the sky. Using mud and ochre he painted great pictures of the bulls and horses and the bird-headed creatures. Next he found a tree that had fallen and been hollowed out by termites. He carried this with him to the cave, where he took the skins of people who'd thrown themselves from the heights and sewed them together, then stretched them over the ends of the hollow tree to make a drum. Finally he took a leg bone, cleaned it and polished it, and set it aside as a striker.

  Now he put on his mother's rags and rubbed mud on his face, and went outside the cave where he hit his hands against his face and cried out, “Oh! Oh! Oh! I am the most wretched woman who has ever lived. My babies are eaten, no one will help me, everyone hates me. Oh! Oh! Oh!"

  The Great Ones laughed and came charging at him as he ran into the cave. When they got inside, however, they forgot all about him, for they saw the pictures and became entranced. Excited, they rushed into the scenes on the walls.

  Immediately, the boy jumped up and pounded the drum. “Brightness of sky,” he chanted. Bam! “Hardness of earth,” Bam! “Don't leave these walls.” Bam! “Through death and through birth.” Bam!

  The Great Ones struggled and twisted but it was no use. They were trapped in the paintings and would never get out. Once more the boy chanted and hit the drum. “Trapped in stone.” Bam! “Trapped in dirt.” Bam! “Feed our hunger.” Bam! “Heal our hurt.” Bam!

  Ever since that day the people could compel the Creatures of Music and Light to help and teach them, but the Bright Ones could never escape to enslave or eat the people ever again.

  * * * *

  This was the story told by Tribute of Angels on the night the Readers of the Sky traveled down from their observatory in the Kingdom of God to Immortal Snake's Nine Rings of Heaven and Earth. The story began at evening but no one knew when it ended. Around the time of the moonrise a few of the Readers shuddered, and pain flickered through their faces, but they did not leave their places. When morning came, and the guests and servants and slaves shook themselves awake, the Readers hurried from the hall.

  That afternoon Broken by Heaven once again climbed the hill to the Kingdom of God. The chief of the Readers met her at the door, his arms folded, his feet firm on the ground. They stared at each other a moment, then Broken by Heaven said, “Which is greater? God's writing in the sky, or the stories of Tribute of Angels?"

  "We were not ready,” the Reader said. “You did not tell us.” The sister of the Snake said nothing. “We will come again tonight."

  Broken by Heaven bowed her head. “Your wisdom is great,” she said.

  All that day the Readers chanted and burned pieces of paper with prayers for strength. They tethered a young bull in their courtyard, walked around it seven times, one for each of the planetary spheres, and then slaughtered it, first cutting its fetlocks so it would topple forward, then the throat. They let the blood drain into the earth, then cut out the heart, which they burned so that the fire might carry the dead bull to the Living World. There, they hoped, the bull would tell of their devotion, and the angels would buoy them up to resist this man who claimed to be the angels’ tribute.

  The Readers came to the Hall of Precious Happiness that evening wearing their formal robes, with black vertical stripes cutting through the purple and yellow. They wore their bull masks, and each carried one of the crosses with tattered rags. When those symbolic skins entered the room, Broken by Heaven looked at her brother. She was pleased to see that he only cringed, and just for a moment. The Readers set their burdens against the walls and sat down with folded arms. None of them spoke. After a few silent breaths Immortal Snake turned to his left, where Tribute of Angels sat on a cushion. “We seem to be all here,” the ruler said. “Why don't you begin?"

  The story that night was a simple one, about a boy who falls in love with the moon. Every month, as the moon wanes, he offers parts of his body to the wolves so that he might dwindle with his love until, at the dark of the moon, he lets them tear out his heart. But the moon has changed his heart to white quartz, so that the wolves cannot swallow it, and every month squirrels find it and place it in a dirt mound, and add twigs and nuts and dung to it, so that slowly it takes the shape of a boy. Finally, the light of the full moon brings him alive for he and his lover to be united for three precious nights.

  The story was short, but all who heard it drifted away from the Earth, carried beyond the houses and treetops, beyond the mountains, far into the region of the evening stars. Soon they were cast into a deep sleep from which not even a storm could have stirred them. All but Broken by Heaven and Tribute of Angels, for they were in the trance of love, and that is deeper even than stories.

  They spent the night wrapt together in the bed of Immortal Snake. When they returned to the hall the guests were just starting to awake. Once again the Readers hurried from the room, not looking at each other, even leaving behind their effigies of cast-off skins. Immortal Snake pointed to the tattered crosses and said to a pair of slaves, “Take those things away and burn them.” Broken by Heaven stared at her brother.

  She did not visit the Readers that day. Instead she lay on her bed while her young women darted all around her, and she thought about Immortal Snake. He was the weakest part, and therefore the most dangerous, of all her plans. Would he be ready when the time came? She had learned to expect so little from him, but he seemed different, stronger. Had the stories of her beloved Tribute changed him? Could they have rearranged his brain and heart? She smiled at the thought. A month ago she might have said it would take a miracle to change her brother. But wasn't Tribute of Angels exactly that? She closed her eyes so that her body might remember his voice, his lips, his hands, his body pressed against her, inside her. He was, she thought, the breath of God speaking through the harsh words of humans.

  The next night the Readers came without announcement or ceremony. They sat in places already reserved for them, they listened and slept, and when morning came they hurried away.

  So it continued. Every evening the Readers slipped into the hall, their eyes down as if they did not want to see each other, or pretend that if they did not look no one could see them. Every morning they hurried away, like a man who has a vision of God in some unlikely place and is embarrassed to let anyone know but he will make sure to come back.

  A surprise came to Broken by Heaven on the day she went to her brother to suggest he think about his responsibilities to his people. She expected ridicule, or just petulance. Instead he asked her to help him, to tell him what to do. They began to work together, for the poor, the merchants, the fishermen and farmers. They even punished those who took bribes and cheated the people. They talked together sometimes for hours, and made plans to use the Army of Heaven to help people in faraway lands. What Broken by Heaven did not tell her brother was that all this work, all this change, was in fact preparation. For she was waiting for a certain event, or rather a moment, and there was no way to know exactly when that might happen.

  The moment came at the beginning of Spring, when the first flowers broke through their buds to offer color to the sky and to the eternal glory of Immortal Snake. Broken by Heaven was surprised it did not happen sooner, and while she was grateful for the time to prepare her brother, she had become anxious, and had taken to staring at those early buds, or the birds annoying the sellers in the market, thinking “Too much time has passed. It should have happened by now."

  Then, on a cool morning with clusters of clouds low in the sky, a man walked the path up to the Kingdom of God. He was ordinary, this man, short, fleshy, a spice dealer. It could have been anybody. He entered the temple, glanced around nervously, then placed his hands together and inclined his scraggly beard toward the lower level Reader who had come to greet him and take his money in exchange for the usual blessing or amulet.

  The request, however, was m
ore substantial. “Wise one,” the man said, “my daughter is getting married and of course she cannot do so until after the middle day of the Spring Festival.” The reader nodded; any marriage begun in the weeks prior to the Day of Cuts would never see a single child. He nodded, but his face was strangely pale. The spice dealer continued, “I have not heard any announcements of the Festival. Can you tell me, please, when it will happen so we may plan the wedding?"

  The Reader stood silent a moment, then said, “Please wait."

  Inside, in the meeting room, he found the majority of his friends and superiors, some playing the game of Chase on a board of red and blue triangles, others sipping tea, or reading. He thought, they're waiting for evening. “A man asks the time of the Spring Festival,” he said. “What should I tell him?” Everyone looked around the room. “Who has been studying the night sky?” Now they all looked down. “Has anyone written down the progress of the moon and planets?"

  One of the Readers jumped up. “Follow me,” he announced. They did so eagerly, grouped behind him as he marched past the statues and wall carpets to the private chamber of their leader. Through a half-open door they could see him standing by the window, like a man caught in a memory of a dream. He was turned in the direction of the Hall of Precious Happiness.

  Fury rose in him when they told him their dilemma. “This is absurd,” he said. “All we need to do is consult the book and give the man his answer.” No one answered him, and when they had all climbed up the tower to the records room just outside the glass-roofed observatory, and the Master slammed open the giant gold-bound book, he too fell silent. No one came close enough to look; they all knew what they would find, blank pages since that first evening they had gone to hear Tribute of Angels. For weeks they had been using old calculations for the minor questions presented to them, but the Spring enactment was of a different order.

  Finally the oldest among them, whose robe was so worn the colors had run together, spoke softly. “We were enchanted. A spell has taken us away from God's writing in the sky. Now we cannot say when the seasons call their festivals. We no longer know when to shed the skin of the Snake."