“Then your people are very strange indeed,” the matriarch said. “Every bloodline has its story and its mysteries and its three names. The Preservers chose to raise up each bloodline in their image for a particular reason, and the stories explain why. You won’t find your real story in that book you carry. That’s about older mysteries, and not about this world at all.” She cuffed one of the women and snatched a wine skin from her. “They keep this from me,” she told Yama, “because they’re frightened I’ll disgrace myself if I get drunk.”
“Nothing could make you drunk, grandmother,” one of the men said. “That’s why we ration your drinking, or you’d poison yourself trying.”
The matriarch spat into the fire. “A mouthful of this rotgut will poison me. Can no one afford proper booze? In the old days we would have used this to fuel our lamps.”
Yama still had the brandy bottle, with a couple of fingers of clear, apricot-scented liquor at its bottom. “Here, grandmother,” he said, and handed it to the matriarch.
The old woman drained the bottle and licked her lips in appreciation. “Do you know how we came into the world, boy? I’ll tell you.”
Several of the people around the fire groaned, and the matriarch said sharply, “It’ll do you good to hear it again. You young people don’t know the stories as well as you should. Listen, then.”
“After the world was made, some of the Preservers set animals down on its surface, and kindled intelligence in them. There are a people descended from coyotes, for instance, whose ancestors were taught by the Preservers to bury their dead. This odd habit brought about a change in the coyotes, for they learned to sit up so they could sit beside the graves and mourn their dead properly. But sitting on cold stone wore away their bushy tails, and after many generations they began standing upright because the stone was uncomfortable to their naked arses. When that happened, their forepaws lengthened into human hands, and their sharp muzzles shortened bit by bit until they became human faces. That’s one story, and there are as many stories as there are bloodlines descended from the different kinds of animals which were taught to become human. But our own people had a different origin.”
“Two of the Preservers fell into an argument about the right way to make human people. The Preservers do not have sexes as we understand them, nor do they marry, but it is easier to follow the story if we think of them as wife and husband, One, Enki, was the Preserver who had charge of the world’s water, and so his work was hard, for in those early times all there was of the world was the Great River, running from nowhere to nowhere. He complained of his hard work to his wife, Ninmah, who was the Preserver of earth, and she suggested that they create a race of marionettes or puppets who would do the work for them. And this they did, using the small amount of white silt that was suspended in the Great River. I see that you know this part of the story.”
“Someone told me a little of it today. It is to be found in the Puranas.”
“What I tell you is truer, for it has been told from mouth to ear for ten thousand generations, and so its words still live, and have not become dead things squashed flat on plastic or pulped wood. Well then, after this race was produced from the mud of the river, there was a great celebration because the Preservers no longer needed to work on their creation. Much beer was consumed, and Ninmah became especially lightheaded. She called to Enki, saying, ‘How good or bad is a human body? I could reshape it in any way I please, but could you find tasks for it?’ Enki responded to this challenge, and so Ninmah made a barren woman, and a eunuch, and several other cripples.”
“But Enki found tasks for them all. The barren woman he made into a concubine; the eunuch he made into a civil servant, and so on. Then in the same playful spirit he challenged Ninmah. He would do the shaping of different races, and she the placing. She agreed, and Enki first made a man whose making was already remote from him, and so the first old man appeared before Ninmah. She offered the old man bread, but he was too feeble to reach for it, and when she thrust the bread into his mouth, he could not chew it for he had no teeth, and so Nimnah could find no use for this unfortunate. Then Enki made many other cripples and monsters, and Ninmah could find no use for them, either.”
“The pair fell into a drunken sleep, and when they wakened all was in uproar, for the cripples Enki had made were spreading through the world. Enki and Ninmah were summoned before the other Preservers to explain themselves, and to escape punishment Enki and Ninmah together made a final race, who would hunt the lame and the old, and so make the races of the world stronger by consuming their weak members.”
“And so we came into the world, and it is said that we have a quick and cruel temper, because Enki and Ninmah suffered dreadfully from the effects of drinking too much beer when they made us, and that was passed to us as a potmaker leaves her thumbprint in the clay.”
“I have heard only the beginning of this story,” Yama said, “and I am glad that now I have heard the end of it.”
“Now you must tell a story,” one of the men said loudly. It was the one who had complained before. He was smaller than the others, but still a head taller than Yama. He wore black leather trousers and a black leather jacket studded with copper nails.
“Be quiet, Gorgo,” the matriarch said. “This young man is our guest.”
Gorgo looked across the fire at Yama, and Yama met his truculent, challenging gaze. Neither was willing to look away, but then a branch snapped in the fire and sent burning fragments flying into Gorgo’s lap. He cursed and brushed at the sparks while the others laughed.
Gorgo glowered and said, “We have heard his boasts echoed in Tamora’s song. I simply wonder if he has the heart to speak for himself. He owes that courtesy, I think.”
“You’re a great one for knowing what’s owed,” someone said.
Gorgo turned on the man. “I only press for payment when it’s needed, as you well know. How much poorer you would be if I didn’t find you work! You are all in my debt.”
The matriarch said, “That is not to be spoken of. Are we not the Fierce People, whose honor is as renowned as our strength and our temper?”
Gorgo said, “Some people need reminding about honor.”
One of the women said, “We fight. You get the rewards.”
“Then don’t ask me for work,” Gorgo said petulantly. “Find your own. I force no one, as is well known, but so many ask for my help that I scarcely have time to sleep or catch my food. But here is our guest. Let’s not forget him. We hear great things of him from Tamora. Hush, and let him speak for himself.”
Yama thought that Gorgo could speak sweetly when he chose, but the honey of his words disguised his envy and suspicion. Clearly, Gorgo thought that Yama’s was one of the trash or vermin bloodlines.
Yama said, “I will tell a story, although I am afraid that it might bore you. It is about how my life was saved by one of the indigens.”
Gorgo grumbled that this didn’t sound like a true story at all. “Tell something of your people instead,” he said. “Please do not tell me that such a fine hero as yourself, if we are to believe the words of our sister here, is so ashamed of his own people that he has to make up stories of subhuman creatures which do not carry the blessing of the Preservers.”
Yama smiled. This at least was easy to counter. “I wish I knew such stories, but I was raised as an orphan.”
“Perhaps your people were ashamed of you,” Gorgo said, but he was the only one to laugh at his sally.
“Tell your story,” Tamora said, “and don’t let Gorgo interrupt you. He is jealous, because he hasn’t any stories of his own.”