Derku the year of the forbidding, when he refused to eat any of the captives we offered him.”
“And how would they know?” said Twerk, ridiculing the idea. “Is there anyone alive now who was alive then, to recognize him? And how could a crocodile live so long?”
“The Great Derku lives forever,” said Lewik.
“Yes, but the true dragon is the derkuwed, the water in flood,” said Twerk, “and the crocodiles are only its children.”
To the child, Naog, these words had another meaning, for he had heard the word
derkuwed
far more often in reference to himself, as his nickname, than in reference to the great annual flood. So to him it sounded as though his father was saying that
he
was the true dragon, and the crocodiles were his children. Almost at once he realized what was actually meant, but the impression lingered in the back of his mind.
“And couldn’t the derkuwed preserve one of its children to comeback to us to be our god a second time?” said Lewik. “Or are you suddenly a holy man who knows what the dragon is saying?”
“All this talk about this Great Derku being one of the ancient ones brought back to us is dangerous,” said Twerk. “Do you want us to return to the terrible days when we fed manfruit to the Great Derku? When our captives were all torn to pieces by the god, while
we
, men and women alike, had to dig out all the canals without slaves?”
“There weren’t so many canals then,” said Lewik. “Father said.”
“Then it must be true,” said Twerk, “if your old father said it. So think about it. Why are there so many canals now, and why are they so long and deep? Because we put our captives to work dredging our canals and making our boats. What if the Great Derku had never refused to eat manfruit? We would not have such a great city here, and other tribes would not bring us gifts and even their own children as slaves. They can come and visit our captives, and even buy them back from us. That’s why we’re not hated and feared, but rather
loved
and feared in all the lands from the Nile to the Salty Sea.”
Naog knew that his father’s manhood journey had been from the Salty Sea all the way up the mountains and across endless grasslands to the great river of the west. It was a legendary journey, fitting for such a large man. So Naog knew that he would have to undertake an even greater journey. But of that he said nothing.
“But these people talking stupidly about this being that same Great Derku returned to us again—don’t you realize that they will want to put it to the test again, and offer it manfruit? And what if the Great Derku
eats
it this time? What do we do then, go back to doing all the dredging ourselves? Or let the canals fill in so we can’t float the seedboats from village to village during the dry season, and so we have no defense from our enemies and no way to ride our dragonboats all year?”
Others in the clan were listening to this argument, since there was little enough privacy under normal circumstances, and none at all when you spoke with a raised voice. So it was no surprise when they chimed in. One offered the opinion that the reason no manfruit should be offered to this Great Derku was because the eating of manfruit would give the Great Derku knowledge of all the thoughts of the people they ate. Another was afraid that the sight of a powerful creature eating the flesh of men wouldlead some of the young people to want to commit the unpardonable sin of eating that forbidden fruit themselves, and in that case all the Derku people would be destroyed.
What no one pointed out was that in the old days, when they fed manfruit to the Great Derku, it wasn’t
just
captives that were offered. During years of little rain or too much rain, the leader of each clan always offered his own eldest son as the first fruit, or, if he could not bear to see his son devoured, he would offer himself in his son’s place—though some said that in the earliest times
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