so, how?
I remembered Hemmy saying that it had been done. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I would have to follow in the footsteps of those who had gone before me, if only to avoid making the same mistakes as they had. I got up and made my way up the mountainside before the men emerged from the byre to get the oxen ready for drawing water.
But I didn’t enjoy the spectacular dawn. The prospect of meeting with the legendary Shirsha filled me with apprehension. I would have to find out for myself whether she was mad or not. If she was, then I would learn what madness was and know if I suffered from it myself. If she wasn’t, if she was just a searcher like myself, then she might, as Hemmy had suggested, have something to teach me.
CHAPTER NINE
W ITH THE SUN CAME the heat, and the whisker-fruit that I had wrapped in my shawl were surprisingly heavy. Walking up the steep hill-sides was nothing new to me; I often came up here, collecting firewood or wild food. Even so I found the morning’s walk hard going.
It would have been easier if I could have stayed on the main porters’ tracks, or even on the smaller paths made by foresters and herders, but I was too wary about being seen to risk them. I had no desire to encounter my mother again, or any of the other villagers. So I kept close to the tracks but not on them, and every few minutes I stopped to rest and listen carefully to the sounds of the forest all around.
They gave me clues to what was going on. Quite often when the birds and beasts were silent it was only because of my presence, but I came to learn that if I stayed still for a certain length of time they would forget me and carry on about their business. But if that time elapsed and they were still silent it meant there was something or someone else around apart from me; when that happened I found myself a quiet corner and waited until I heard the intruder pass or until the forest sounds returned and told me that all was well.
It happened rarely, though, and I made quite good progress that morning. When the heat reached its worst I began to look around for a cool place to rest. There was no sign of a stream, but when I was about ready to drop I found a marshy spot where an underground spring trickled to the surface, and I lay at its edge and dozed with the cool dampness seeping through my clothes.
I didn’t move again until I heard the life of the forest winding down towards the end of the day. I filled up my water-skin and set out in search of food, but although I spent quite some time digging for ground-plums, all I got for my pains was dirty hands and I had to fall back on my dried rations.
I ate as I walked, eager to get some distance behind me before nightfall. What I planned was to find an open patch of ground where I could watch for beguilers in the dark, so I left the path and headed directly up-hill through the trees. But as dusk began to fall, and then more solid darkness, I had still not found a way out into the open and when it became too dark to see any further I had to make my bed where I found myself, among the trees.
It wasn’t pleasant in there. It was quite different from the hill-side above the drowning-pool which was open to the moon and the stars. Here the trees and bushes closed over me; I could see almost nothing, and since I had arrived in total darkness I had no clear idea of where I was or what my surroundings looked like. The rustlings of the nocturnal creatures seemed ominously loud and close and I rolled my bundle of provisions up into a ball and put them beneath my head as a pillow. It seemed to me that I stayed awake for all eternity, listening to my surroundings and trying not to let my imagination run away with me again, but I may have slept. Either that or my thoughts ran into dreams without my noticing. In any case I woke, or became alert, not knowing whether the sound I heard came from outside my head or inside it.
It was a long, terrible shriek, full of longing and pain.
I remembered Hemmy saying that it had been done. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps I would have to follow in the footsteps of those who had gone before me, if only to avoid making the same mistakes as they had. I got up and made my way up the mountainside before the men emerged from the byre to get the oxen ready for drawing water.
But I didn’t enjoy the spectacular dawn. The prospect of meeting with the legendary Shirsha filled me with apprehension. I would have to find out for myself whether she was mad or not. If she was, then I would learn what madness was and know if I suffered from it myself. If she wasn’t, if she was just a searcher like myself, then she might, as Hemmy had suggested, have something to teach me.
CHAPTER NINE
W ITH THE SUN CAME the heat, and the whisker-fruit that I had wrapped in my shawl were surprisingly heavy. Walking up the steep hill-sides was nothing new to me; I often came up here, collecting firewood or wild food. Even so I found the morning’s walk hard going.
It would have been easier if I could have stayed on the main porters’ tracks, or even on the smaller paths made by foresters and herders, but I was too wary about being seen to risk them. I had no desire to encounter my mother again, or any of the other villagers. So I kept close to the tracks but not on them, and every few minutes I stopped to rest and listen carefully to the sounds of the forest all around.
They gave me clues to what was going on. Quite often when the birds and beasts were silent it was only because of my presence, but I came to learn that if I stayed still for a certain length of time they would forget me and carry on about their business. But if that time elapsed and they were still silent it meant there was something or someone else around apart from me; when that happened I found myself a quiet corner and waited until I heard the intruder pass or until the forest sounds returned and told me that all was well.
It happened rarely, though, and I made quite good progress that morning. When the heat reached its worst I began to look around for a cool place to rest. There was no sign of a stream, but when I was about ready to drop I found a marshy spot where an underground spring trickled to the surface, and I lay at its edge and dozed with the cool dampness seeping through my clothes.
I didn’t move again until I heard the life of the forest winding down towards the end of the day. I filled up my water-skin and set out in search of food, but although I spent quite some time digging for ground-plums, all I got for my pains was dirty hands and I had to fall back on my dried rations.
I ate as I walked, eager to get some distance behind me before nightfall. What I planned was to find an open patch of ground where I could watch for beguilers in the dark, so I left the path and headed directly up-hill through the trees. But as dusk began to fall, and then more solid darkness, I had still not found a way out into the open and when it became too dark to see any further I had to make my bed where I found myself, among the trees.
It wasn’t pleasant in there. It was quite different from the hill-side above the drowning-pool which was open to the moon and the stars. Here the trees and bushes closed over me; I could see almost nothing, and since I had arrived in total darkness I had no clear idea of where I was or what my surroundings looked like. The rustlings of the nocturnal creatures seemed ominously loud and close and I rolled my bundle of provisions up into a ball and put them beneath my head as a pillow. It seemed to me that I stayed awake for all eternity, listening to my surroundings and trying not to let my imagination run away with me again, but I may have slept. Either that or my thoughts ran into dreams without my noticing. In any case I woke, or became alert, not knowing whether the sound I heard came from outside my head or inside it.
It was a long, terrible shriek, full of longing and pain.
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