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  Testament by John Baxter

  I would rather not talk of this thing. There is in me the feeling I have had before only when I was in great danger, the feeling that the gods are angry and must be satisfied. Against their rage there is no protection. My mouth is dry when I think of this.

  My hands sweat and my body trembles. To talk of what has happened makes my fear worse and I would rather remain silent. But the elders have ordered me to record what has been done, that those who come after may know and understand better. So it is set down here.

  It begins in the last month of the year of drought. These were bad times. My family had not tasted real food for many weeks. We had only the dried seeds of grass and the little juice we could squeeze from plants. There was no meat or blood. Always we were thirsty. Even in the temples the sacred well was dry and young men going for their initiation were turned away. The elders told them to come back when there was again water in the canal. From the hot dark blueness of the sky, it looked like being a long time.

  Finally, when our seeds were nearly used up, I decided to try hunting for sand lizards in the hills. It would be dangerous and the rewards would at best be small, but we were desperate. When it was hot and dry, the lizards mated, and at these times they were more savage than ever. Perhaps I would die--but why live if I must sit by while my woman and child die of starvation? After I had decided, I took down my spears from the wall and honed them. They would need to be sharp for the hunt.

  In the morning I crept out of the village. It was cold and wet in the darkness. The dew settled on me like the touch of frozen hands. The huts huddled to the canal. Nothing stirred. Even my family knew nothing of my going, so there was no sound. This was the way I had wished it to be, but I did not turn my face to the desert without longing for a word of farewell, a wave, even the bark of a dog. It was as if I had already been given up for dead.

  Out on the plain I began to run. That way, I could keep warm until the sun rose. It was easy going, even with my spears on my back, because the ground was still frozen. It rang like stone under my sandals and each time I put down my feet I could feel the crackle of frost. After a while I stopped and looked back.

  The village was hidden in its hollow. Now I was alone under the black sky, barely lit by the sun. It would be hours before it would warm to dark blue. But for the jagged hills in the distance, it seemed, the sky would settle to the plain and crush me. I pulled my furs about me and shivered. It seemed suddenly more cold. I took up my spears and went on.

  By the time I had been running for an hour the sun was well up and the sky lighter. The black became a light purple and I knew it would be fine and hot. By the time I reached the edge of the hills it was hard to believe I had ever been cold. The sun beat down and my mouth was as dry as cloth. I thirsted for a drink; vegetable juice, blood, anything. Once I even found myself dreaming of water. It shocked me.

  I had not thought I would ever be that thirsty, nor that I could remember what water tasted like. The only time I had drunk it was at my initiation, three years ago, and yet out there in the desert my memory was as sharp as if it had been only yesterday. To help my thirst I sucked pebbles. If I found game, then would be my chance to drink deep. Only this thought kept me going as I picked my way upwards through the crevasses.

  It took me another hour to reach the high places where the lizards live. There the world seemed to have been tumbled about by a demon. Around every turn there was a hole that could hide a dozen lizards waiting to leap out in a fury of fangs and claws. I undid the bundle of spears and checked them carefully.

  There was a heavy one with a sharp edge that my woman had made for me. The blade was beaten from a piece of metal she had found in the ruins. We both knew it would mean punishment if the priests found we had offended the law, but metal cuts better than stone and I had to be careful with the tools that brought my family food. So I carried this spear in my right hand, ready to thrust, and slung the rest on my back. Then I went in among the rocks.

  I was very afraid, but I put my fear behind me and gripped the shaft tight. Fear would do me no good--courage might. It was my concentration on this that made me careless. I had been hunting for some minutes before I sensed the strangeness around me. I stopped and listened. Many strange things then came to me. First, there were no lizards. The sun was hot and I knew I had moved too quietly for them to know I was there, and yet they were hiding, deep among the rocks. From what I did not like to think.

  There was no sound, only that of the wind whispering to the rocks in its own voice. Then, looking down, I saw that the sand on the path had been churned about by something passing by. Here and there in the confusion were hints of a pattern I had never seen before. My first thought was to run away, but then curiosity took me by the arm and I walked deeper into the maze, following the tracks.

  It did not take me long to find the thing that made them. I came around a spur and almost ran into it. It was standing in the shade of a rock and, to me, it looked at that moment like a creature crouching to spring. I jumped back behind the rock, but the thing did not move and soon I saw it was not alive. I went closer.

  Still there was nothing. Now that I was near it, I could see this was no animal It looked--though I know this sounds ridiculous--like a little hut on wheels. But such a small hut; my child would not have been able to get into it. And such wheels; they were small, but perfectly round and firm, far better than we could ever make from the scraps and splinters we have to work with.

  All around the house were clear openings filled with what I first thought was ice. But I touched it and it was warm and dry. This puzzled me, but I was too curious to think about it. I bent down and looked through the openings. Inside there were seats and strange tools filling almost all the space. And all so small. I wondered what kind of craftsman would make such a toy. Then a thought went through me like fire.

  Perhaps a demon...

  I turned quickly and looked around with new eyes. Was I in a trap? In my fear it was not hard to imagine so. Any shadow could have held a monster, yet they were so deep in the bright mid-day that I would not have seen it. The silence was eerie. Only the wind moved among the stones. I leaned against the rock, listening. And soon I heard the sound of walking feet.

  At first I thought it was a stone clattering in the rocks. But then it was louder, and I felt the regularity of it. Something was walking near me, very fast. I could not tell where. The echoes broke the sound into pieces and threw them all around me. I settled into a crouch. My spear, as if it too could hear, rose into the hunting position. We both waited. The steps grew nearer, louder. Short steps, hurrying to me.

  Closer--then suddenly before me their owner. I think I cried out in horror. Impossibly small, a strutting dwarf of a thing with one great eye glinting in its face. Before terror struck me down I threw with all my strength. The spear flew clean and sank deep. For a moment the creature clutched the shaft and tried to draw it out. Then, as if bowing to the will of the gods, it fell.

  There was no sound except for a hiss that died after a while. Where it came from I could not tell, though when it ended the body seemed fallen in on itself; empty and somehow more dead than anything I had ever seen. For a long time I waited, afraid it would rise again, but it did not move. As before, the wind talked to the stones. The sun shone.

  When my body had stopped trembling I stood up and Walked to the thing I had killed. It did not move. Would a demon move after being speared? I did not know. I walked closer. In death, the creature was less horrible. It sprawled like a discarded doll, legs and arms thrown out awkwardly. Only a stain of blood around the spear shaft showed that this thing had once lived.

  Now that my fear was almost gone, I could see things more clearly. What I had thought to be a single horrible ey
e was just a window of the same material as in the hut on wheels. And when I bent closer I could see something behind the window; something very like a face, looking up into mine.

  Yet surely this was no natural creature. The body seemed like mine in many ways--the arms, legs, head--but they were all so small, like those of a stunted and deformed child. How could a chest like that draw breath? My own chest was three times larger around, and yet even I found it hard to breathe here where the air was thinner. I stood for a long time, wondering. The spear was like the marker on a grave, pointing straight up to the sky. Almost as a second thought I wrenched it out. And the blood flowed.

  When this happened my whole body seemed to burn. I felt for the first time the thrill of having killed. I remembered my dry mouth and the pains of hunger in my stomach. Perhaps I did wrong, but right or wrong I could not have acted otherwise. I took my drinking cup and drank deeply until I was no longer thirsty.

  An hour passed. I lay by the rocks and slept. The sun was warm and even in the shade I needed no covering. Nothing disturbed my sleep. The only sound was of the wind and the sand it blew pattering against the rocks. When I woke, the sun was lower. Unless I hurried it would be dark before I arrived home. There was no longer any strangeness in the animal I had killed. I had drunk of its blood so now it was game and nothing more. Slinging it over my back I set out towards the village.

  With food inside me, the going was easier. I almost ran despite my load, and sang an old hunting chant so loudly that even out there under the sky my voice rang. I walked into the setting sun proudly, thinking of a warm fire, a good meal, the faces of my people when they saw what I had brought. It was as good as I hoped. The children saw me first and ran shouting into the village.

  When I came down the path they were all standing in front of their houses, shouting a welcome. I swelled with pride. My chest was tight and I felt for the first time the triumph of a good hunt. In the centre of the village I dumped down my kill. The people gathered around. One of them, looking more closely, saw it was no ordinary animal. The others saw too, and were afraid, muttering among themselves.

  But then I handed around a flask of blood I had taken from the animal. A few drank of it and, hearing their cries of delight, the others asked for a share. The mood of happiness returned. Perhaps we did not know what this animal was, but few people had ventured into the wild lands of the north and nobody knew what animals lived there.

  The house on wheels, the strange clothing, so much better than we could make--these we put out of our minds. It is easy to forget. We had starved long and were in no mood to throw the gods' gift of food back in their faces. When the elders had all tasted of the blood the women took the carcase away for preparation. A cooking pit was dug and spices brought out of hidden jars. It would be a great feast.

  While we waited I sat near the fire talking with the other men, telling them over and over again of the hunt. This was real glory and I savoured it to the full while I could. But after a few minutes I began to feel ill. At first I laughed a little louder and forgot about it, but soon this was not enough. My body sweated all over and my stomach heaved within me.

  A moment later I was sick, racked with a retching that would not stop. Those sitting at the fire looked at me, then at each other, and their eyes were troubled. I pleaded sickness from the excitement of the hunt and slipped away to be alone for a while, but by then we all knew something was wrong and a fear was falling over us. Why had the blood made me sick?

  Why--unless it was unnatural food.

  Shaking with fear now as well as sickness I went to where the women were preparing the food. I knew as soon as I grew near their circle that they too knew. They were not working. They had sung before--now they were silent. As I approached they moved away from the pit and I looked down at the creature I had killed. The tough clothing had been stripped away from the body and I saw the man within for the first time. All around me the women stood watching. Their eyes burned into my back.

  As night fell, there were signs in the gathering darkness. We huddled before our huts, waiting. Beyond the hills there was a glow and a roaring of a fire more vast than any man can kindle. Then, just as the dark closed in, a thing came flying out of the sunset and bore down on the village. First it was just a dark speck against the sky, but then we saw that it was a terrible bird coming towards us, bigger and faster than any we had ever seen.

  And it flew more steadily than any natural animal. When it reached the village it circled as birds of prey do. It seemed to watch us, observing everything we did with a cold and unfeeling eye. We could not see it well in the dusk, but its shape struck a dreadfully familiar chord in us.

  We had all seen that shape before. It circled us for a long time until the last light was gone from the sky, and then it curved away and disappeared.

  Looking around at the silent faces I knew they were all thinking as I was. The shape of the flying thing was terribly like the rusted wrecks that littered the ruins. Out in the desert lay the hulk of some vast construction the function of which not even the elders knew. Littered around were broken containers long since worn to shreds by the desert winds.

  This was the place where a great bird had crashed to earth after bringing us from some other place--so the myth ran. But that was unimaginably long ago, before the oldest elder had been born, and there was nobody to tell if the tales were true. But I knew now that they were. And I knew too that the man I had killed had been a brother.

  Now there is in my soul a great fear. The women have taken up the body and washed its wounds. He has been wrapped in his own clothing. The gashes in the cloth have been sewn up as best we can, but we all know it is not enough. The tears are like scars and they cannot be hidden.

  The priests have raised the body high on a platform so that he may be near his home among the stars, and now they sit about him, chanting the prayers for the pacification of the gods. I have looked at the man I killed. His dead face stares up through the helmet at the sky, and in his eyes is a terrible yearning. He knows he can never go back to his home. And we too know that our homes will never be there for us to return to. Whatever happens, nothing will ever be the same again.

  Now I have covered my body with ashes and put on the mantle of manhood. With the priests I will sit and sing the prayers and wait for judgment.

  The End.

 

 

  John Baxter, Testament

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