Read Online The Legend of the Phantom by Jacob Nelson - Free Book Online
Authors: Jacob Nelson
Ads: Link
still mostly a monologue on Kit’s part.
It was just time until the question of where she came from, and what led up to her capture was breached. Though Kit tried hard not to ask her any of the hard questions, and treated that subject with the sacredness of taboo, Caribo felt no injuncture and largely through curiosity and in a small part through teasing Kit about his flirting, he broached the subject.
As Kit surmised, Miya’s response to Caribo would be; Miya wasn’t willing to talk about it.
Caribo appeared to give up, but a few days later he brought up the topic in another way altogether. “Miya, how did you learn so much about the foods of the jungle? Didn’t you say you were from near the coast?”
“Ever since I was young, my father would take me on excursions into the jungle,” Miya curtly replied.
“Oh, really? To where?” asked Caribo casually.
“Just further up the river where our city stood.”
“Yet far enough to know the different kinds of plants and their uses,” Caribo insisted.
“Yes,” replied Miya, showing signs of some sort of inward struggle.
“And why did he do that? Take you along, I mean. Just for the sake of education?”
Miya decided to come clean, in hopes of shutting him up. “He had hoped that I might be able to favor one of the Kings of another tribe further up. The King was Aztec, and needed a wife. My father had hoped that by knowing the plants and their uses, I might be of more use to him alive rather than dead.” She paused for a moment before continuing.
“Dead?” inquired Kit , taking advantage of the break to interject something on his part.
“Yes,” she continued , scowling at the interruption. “According to Aztec thought, the pregnant woman was like a warrior who symbolically captured her child for the Aztec state in the painful and bloody battle of birth. They are considered as female aspects of defeated heroic warriors. Women dying in childbirth become fierce goddesses who carry the setting sun into the netherworld realm of Mictlan. My father was afraid that once I had been given over to the other man and had produced his heir, that I would be killed, as a heroic warrior in childbirth.” She took a long breath and continued. “However, as a shaman woman, a healer, I would have had more power… power to keep myself alive at all costs. So I studied plants until I was left without time to study more.” She searched Kit and Caribo’s faces to see how they were taking all this. They looked a little confused.
“So you were betrothed,” Caribo simply stated , understanding the way the tribes work, hoping that Kit would give up his flirtatious advances with her.
“Yes,” she answered in a low voice, as she turned her face from Kit , in an attempt to hide her expression.
“So how did you end up a sacrifice of the Aztecs?” Kit inquired, changing the subject somewhat.
“The man that my father wished me to marry was an evil, ugly, old man.”
Kit inwardly chuckled at her description. “I take it you didn’t like him,” he simply said.
“ I did not love him and did not want him to touch me,” she responded, curtly. “Even the thought of him crushing me in his arms made my flesh wish to leave the bones of my body. I cried many long nights and finally I was told that on the morrow I would be handed over to him in order to make an alliance between the two Kingdoms.” Miya’s voice choked a bit as she continued her story. “I decided that I would never allow him to take me. So that night I stole away. I went to a place where I knew another tribe was… where I knew they preferred the sacrifice more than the stealing of virtue. There I allowed myself to become captured. They took me, drugged me, and left me tied. It was as I had hoped. I looked forward to my departure from this world.” Here she paused… then continued, “Until you came.”
Kit glanced over at her as she said the last words and saw that she had turned a bit darker … a
It was just time until the question of where she came from, and what led up to her capture was breached. Though Kit tried hard not to ask her any of the hard questions, and treated that subject with the sacredness of taboo, Caribo felt no injuncture and largely through curiosity and in a small part through teasing Kit about his flirting, he broached the subject.
As Kit surmised, Miya’s response to Caribo would be; Miya wasn’t willing to talk about it.
Caribo appeared to give up, but a few days later he brought up the topic in another way altogether. “Miya, how did you learn so much about the foods of the jungle? Didn’t you say you were from near the coast?”
“Ever since I was young, my father would take me on excursions into the jungle,” Miya curtly replied.
“Oh, really? To where?” asked Caribo casually.
“Just further up the river where our city stood.”
“Yet far enough to know the different kinds of plants and their uses,” Caribo insisted.
“Yes,” replied Miya, showing signs of some sort of inward struggle.
“And why did he do that? Take you along, I mean. Just for the sake of education?”
Miya decided to come clean, in hopes of shutting him up. “He had hoped that I might be able to favor one of the Kings of another tribe further up. The King was Aztec, and needed a wife. My father had hoped that by knowing the plants and their uses, I might be of more use to him alive rather than dead.” She paused for a moment before continuing.
“Dead?” inquired Kit , taking advantage of the break to interject something on his part.
“Yes,” she continued , scowling at the interruption. “According to Aztec thought, the pregnant woman was like a warrior who symbolically captured her child for the Aztec state in the painful and bloody battle of birth. They are considered as female aspects of defeated heroic warriors. Women dying in childbirth become fierce goddesses who carry the setting sun into the netherworld realm of Mictlan. My father was afraid that once I had been given over to the other man and had produced his heir, that I would be killed, as a heroic warrior in childbirth.” She took a long breath and continued. “However, as a shaman woman, a healer, I would have had more power… power to keep myself alive at all costs. So I studied plants until I was left without time to study more.” She searched Kit and Caribo’s faces to see how they were taking all this. They looked a little confused.
“So you were betrothed,” Caribo simply stated , understanding the way the tribes work, hoping that Kit would give up his flirtatious advances with her.
“Yes,” she answered in a low voice, as she turned her face from Kit , in an attempt to hide her expression.
“So how did you end up a sacrifice of the Aztecs?” Kit inquired, changing the subject somewhat.
“The man that my father wished me to marry was an evil, ugly, old man.”
Kit inwardly chuckled at her description. “I take it you didn’t like him,” he simply said.
“ I did not love him and did not want him to touch me,” she responded, curtly. “Even the thought of him crushing me in his arms made my flesh wish to leave the bones of my body. I cried many long nights and finally I was told that on the morrow I would be handed over to him in order to make an alliance between the two Kingdoms.” Miya’s voice choked a bit as she continued her story. “I decided that I would never allow him to take me. So that night I stole away. I went to a place where I knew another tribe was… where I knew they preferred the sacrifice more than the stealing of virtue. There I allowed myself to become captured. They took me, drugged me, and left me tied. It was as I had hoped. I looked forward to my departure from this world.” Here she paused… then continued, “Until you came.”
Kit glanced over at her as she said the last words and saw that she had turned a bit darker … a
Similar Books
