Daughter of God

By Maxwell Peterson

Somewhere in the darkness, a story was being told.

     A man withered and bent with age prodded at the embers of a small, bright fire with one end of his walking stick as he spoke. It seemed as though all the world held its breath in the blackness, listening. The old man’s voice was quiet yet strong, and his words drifted through the silent jungle air, ancient and commanding.

     A young girl sat across from him in the flickering glow and listened. She wore a necklace of ivory arrow points, standing brilliant-white against her dark skin. There were bright feathers and flowers braided into her raven hair, and on her wrists she wore bracelets carved from bone, arm bands bearing symbols as old as The Gods, talismans protecting against forgotten evils. Aside from these the girl sat naked, listening to the words the old man spoke. She said nothing, and her mind did not stray from the story, for it was told but once in a year, and such stories have power.

     The old man did not look at the girl as he spoke. His eyes were ever on the fire, his walking stick shifting and prodding, renewing the living flame, for it was an ill omen for the story to be given in darkness.

     The words flowed from within him, from places dark and deep. For the old man, there was nothing else, for in his village he was the keeper of the story, and he had given it for seasons out of mind.

     The jungle stood silent, and still. And so the girl listened, and the old man spoke.

     This is what he said:

     “In the dawn times when The Panther God was still in favor with The Sun, The Mother gave forth all manner of good things to eat, and the world was a place of immeasurable beauty and peace. Man was young, and close to The Gods, and walked among them as friends.

     “The youngest of The Gods was Nyamun, who the men of the north call Moccus. Nyamun appeared to men as a great boar, beautiful and proud, with tusks so brilliant that the men said amongst each other that surely these were slivers of the sun.

     “Youngest among The Gods though He was, Nyamun was endless seasons older than man. Nevertheless, Nyamun was closest to man, and was dearly loved by all the tribes. He brought the women healthy, strong children with His blessing, and in the dawn-times, the weakest hunters were mightier than the greatest warriors of our tribe today. There was always game to be had, and one need do no more than cast his spear into the jungle to be fed each night, so plentiful had Nyamun made the wild boar for man.

     “In return for His gifts to mankind, Nyamun asked only that they take no boar while Mother Moon was hidden beneath the night sky. For when Mother Moon was gone from sight, it was said that all the boars of the jungle would come to the sacred meeting place of The Gods, bringing to Nyamun their entreaties, and on this night was held the sacred dance of the boars. On the night of the boar dance, it was said that all the boars of the jungle were Nyamun’s children. The people of the villages shut up their dwellings against the blackness on these nights, for the mysteries of The Gods are not for man to know.”

     A gentle breeze set the small fire dancing. The old man drew his walking stick to his side and pushed the fire-end into the soft earth. His eyes never left the glowing embers, nor did he seem even to breathe. Uwimana sat as though made of stone.

     After a time, the fire fell still and, almost imperceptibly, the old man lifted the walking stick and slid it back into the flames. As though there had been no pause, the old man spoke again.

     “There was a hunter,” the old man said, “named Kintu.

     “Kintu was the greatest hunter of our tribe. A hand taller than the other hunters and muscled as though he were made of wood, there was no man swifter or stronger than he. No man’s spear flew so true and it was put about that Kintu was a favorite of The Gods. Some said that he was blessed by Nyamun, who was The God of the Hunt, and perhaps even Kintu believed it to be true.

     “One day Kintu was stalking a she-lion through the jungle. She had killed a woman bathing in a river near the village, and the people had been living in an uneasy fear. That night would be the No-Moon, and he sought meat for his dinner.

     “Long he tracked the she-lion, through the thickest and blackest jungle undergrowth. Sweat poured down his body and Kintu began to feel the weight of his spear. He longed for a drink of cool water or a place of rest. For in the jungle, Kintu knew, even for a hunter as mighty as he, it was unwise to lay down your wit along with your weapon.”

     The old man’s walking stick fell still, and he seemed entranced by the dancing flame for a time. Uwimana felt the heat of the fire wash across her face, and smelled the sweet bark the old man had placed on the kindling.

     It seemed to Uwimana that there was a shift then, a rustle in the world behind the world. The old man’s gaze rose slowly from the fire, and he looked at her.

     “Kintu pushed through the underbrush and found himself in an open place,” the old man said. “And in a small pool beneath a waterfall, there bathed a girl.

     “Kintu had never before laid eyes on such a girl. Her skin was as smooth and dark as polished river-stone. Her hair was long and black and fell in ringlets around her small, high breasts, and Kintu saw bright feathers and wooden beads braided there. He stood, unmoving. His spear dropped from his hand, and Kintu thought her a goddess.

     “At the sound of his fallen weapon the girl saw and was afraid, hiding herself in the tumbling water.

     “Kintu called to her that she need not fear him, and that he wished only to speak with her. He came to the edge of the water. Afraid though she was, the girl came slowly from the waterfall, so Kintu could see only her face, her body hidden beneath the dark water of the pool.

     “Her eyes were dark as onyx, and Kintu thought to himself that he had never seen eyes so beautiful. And so Kintu said to the girl that he loved her and would make her his wife, and asked her if he might know what she was called.

     “The girl told Kintu her name, and told him that he should meet her at the pool that night when the shadows were deepest. Her voice was as deep and velvety as a panther’s purr.

     “Kintu remembered that this night was the night of Nyamun’s sacred dance, but his lust for the girl was strong and full, and Kintu thought to himself, ‘My purpose is not boars this night, so I might leave the village and honor still Nyamun’s hallowed day. Besides, am I not in the favor of The God?’ Kintu was young, and love may blind the keenest eye and weaken the soundest heart.

     “That night, when all the villagers had sealed themselves away from the blackness, and the shadows of the jungle were longest, Kintu slipped quietly from the village. He carried a long, sturdy hunting spear with him. It was his favorite, with a bone-carved point as broad as a man’s hand, so sharp that it could split the bristle of a pig.

     “Kintu knew that this was the sacred night of the boars, but the jungle holds many dangers, and often the surest hope lies in the point of a spear.

     “As Kintu moved through the leaves and trees, he felt about him a God-stillness. The way was well-remembered, and it was not long before Kintu had reached the clearing and the waterfall.

     “There, in the clearing,” the old man said, “Kintu saw The God.

     “The boar dance rushed and swirled around Him, the beasts countless in number. Kintu saw boars of every size and every age, some with tusks budding, young and dark and aggressive. Others, broken-tusked and grey, danced the old dance around the edges of the clearing. Kintu saw all of this and was afraid. He stood as still as the blessed dead, and dared not even breathe.

     “A boar let out a squeal, then. A high, ululating shriek that jarred Kintu from his trance. Terror flooded through him as cold as the venom of brother snake. He turned to the shriek, and the frenzy of beasts parted, and there Kintu saw the greatest boar he had ever laid eyes upon. The God, Nyamun. His tusks seemed almost to give off a light of their own in their brilliance, long and razor-edged. Nyamun stood tall and powerful, and it seemed to Kintu as if the black eyes of The God held the bloody red splash of a sunset, and looked into his very soul.

     “Unable to bear the terror, unthinking of the consequences it would carry, Kintu raised his hunting spear, with its bone-carved point, and let it fly for the heart of The God.

     “It seemed then that time moved as flowing sand, slow and dreamlike as the world followed the flight of Kintu’s spear. The shaft flew straight, pulled through the chaos of the boar dance by a brilliant flash of razor-edged bone.”

     The old man’s voice fell to almost a whisper.

     “The spear pierced the eyes of The God and flew on, finding the heart of one of Nyamun’s children beyond.

     “For one great and dreadful moment, there was stillness. Then a great shrieking, unholy and monstrous rose, shaking even the world beneath the world. The rage of The God filled the boars, and they rushed over each other as a living, writhing sea upon Kintu. He fell screaming beneath the flinty hooves and tusks of the children of Nyamun and knew no more.

     “In the villages that night, the people dreamt of the blackness of The God.”

     The old man drew his walking stick once more from the fire and pushed the end into the earth. “The vengeance of Nyamun was long and terrible,” he said.

     “For one hundred seasons no woman conceived. No girl gave birth, and the men of the village grew old, and the women passed the age of motherhood. Soon the youngest girls were women, and childless, and the people despaired and saw their end.

     “The holy men of the village, grey and bent with age, had long sought salvation in the omens of entrails and stars and other, blacker things, but had read there only rage.

     “But on the last day of the hundredth season, the oldest of the elders read in the omens a message from The God.”

     The old man looked again at Uwimana.

     “It told of sacrifice,” he said.

     The old man rose to his feet then, slowly unfolding himself onto aged and withered legs. Uwimana stood with him. He turned to the jungle and began to walk toward the darkest of the shadows. The only light was from the fire, for there was no moon that night. As they walked, the old man leaned heavily on his walking stick.

     “Every fourth season, the people brought a virgin girl to the clearing and left her for Nyamun, for the omens had told of a bride for The God, and of a child for the one that had been taken from Him.

     “Each time the people left the girl on the sacred night of Nyamun, and on the next morning found always that the girl was dead, for she had not found favor with The God. But the women of the village became fertile once more, and so the sacrifice continued.”

     The old man stopped. Uwimana felt an emptiness around her in the darkness, and knew herself to be in the clearing.

     He took her hand then, and led her forward to the center of the emptiness, where there stood an old and well-worn pole, driven into the earth. Uwimana stood against it, the wood smooth to her back. The old man bound her hands and feet to the post and then stood before her. Uwimana could see him, faintly, in the light of the distant fire.

     “What of the woman in the clearing?” she asked. Her voice was a gentle breeze and the sound of rain, velvety and soft.

     “Some say that she was Anansi, the trickster, jealous of Nyamun’s closeness to man. Others say she was Mother Moon, angry that The God had hidden his ritual from her sight. The truth of it, however, is left to mystery.”

     “And what of Kintu?”  Uwimana asked, and she saw then a sadness in the milky-grey of the old man’s eyes. He drew himself close to his walking stick, and looked to the head. It was carved from bone, as large as a hunter’s hand, dull, stained black and brown. The old man breathed, and the hollow rustle of age was in his breath.

     “His punishment was harshest,” he said.

     The old man turned and walked as old men do into the jungle, and Uwimana found herself alone.

     She was filled with the emptiness of the place, and the silence. The cord was rough on her wrists and ankles, and the smell of death surrounded her, from ages of sacrifice.

     Hours passed, and Uwimana thought of many things. She thought of her mother, and of the dance of the boars, and of the woman in the clearing, and of The God.

     As if bidden by the thought, Uwimana felt a presence, ancient and monstrous.

     At first she could not see it, saw nothing at all, only heard its breath and breathed its scent. Gradually a light filled the clearing, and it seemed to Uwimana to come from the boar itself, from the brilliant white tusks as It moved toward her.

     The boar was larger than any Uwimana had seen. It had come close and stopped before her, huge and powerful. It turned Its black eyes to her and bellowed, long and loud. Uwimana did not move.

     “I was told you were blind, Lord.” Uwimana said. The boar was still for a moment. Then It spoke.

     “You do not fear me, child?” It said.

     “I came here for you, to give myself wholly to your will.  Why then should I fear you?”

     The boar stood taller, and she felt the black eyes of The God upon her soul. After a time the boar spoke again.

     “I could take your life in My hands, child, and laugh as it ran down My teeth. I could dance with My children over your body until the earth was sodden with your clay. I could eat your life, and you would cease to be, erased from the world as if you never were. You would spend an eternity in the blackness within, forever in nothingness.”

     Uwimana did not tremble, only looked into the night-sky eyes of The God and said, “I come of my will to give myself to you.”

     The Boar-God Nyamun bellowed, shaking the foundations of the earth with His roar. But Uwimana did not cry out, or weep, or twist away. Uwimana looked into the eyes of The God and said, “To any fate, I am yours.”

     As the words left her lips, for the first time she felt a pang of sorrow, and she closed her eyes. Uwimana could feel the presence of Nyamun, ancient and wild and bloody. Uwimana opened her eyes to her fate.

     The boar was gone. In His place stood a Man.

     His skin was dark, and He had eyes as black as night. His braided hair was held by bright beads and feathers and sun-bleached bones. An open robe flowed from His shoulders to the ground. As Uwimana watched, astonished, it seemed to her the pattern was alive. It swirled and changed, now as a flame, now as the dance of a rainbow and the flowing underside of an ocean shell. The Man was tall and slender, and when He spoke, His words were the whispers of boars in the underbrush, and the falling of rain onto rich earth.

     “There has never been one such as you,” He said, and there was a smile on His dark lips as He spoke.

     “Who are you?” whispered Uwimana.

     The Man drew His robe about Him and said, “I am God of the hunt, and God of the fertile and the unborn. The north men called Me Moccus, and your people said I was Nyamun. I am these and more.” He smiled, then. “Tell Me your name, woman who does not fear Me.”

     “My name is Uwimana.”

     Nyamun stepped close to her, and she saw that He was beautiful. Uwimana felt the bonds disappear from her hands and feet. “Then, Uwimana,” The God said, “Will you be My queen?  Will you give Me a child?”

     Uwimana closed her eyes. She could feel His breath on her cheek. Her hands found His. They were warm and strong. She opened her eyes and whispered something to Him, and Nyamun swept His robe over them both.

     There were sounds then, in the darkness, and things older than gods.

####

     When the sun rose, the elder of the village journeyed to the place of sacrifice to say the prayers necessary for the soul of the girl, and to collect a lock of hair from the dead, as had been custom for countless ages. With the elder traveled a strong warrior, for even in daylight, the dangers of the jungle were greater in number than the stars in the sky.

     But when they came to the place of the ritual, they saw the girl waiting for them in the clearing. Her hair was unadorned and flowed gently around her shoulders. The sacrifice always was left naked, in humility before The God, but the girl now wore a magnificent robe. The pattern seemed almost to dance and change before the eyes of the men, night-black underneath.

     As the elder and the warrior stood, astonished, the girl turned to face them.

     “What magic is this?” cried the elder, recoiling in terror, for the girl’s eyes were black as pitch. The warrior raised his spear and backed away from the girl.

     “I am given to The God,” the girl said with many voices, deep and ululating and strange, and she turned her eyes to the heavens. The warrior shrieked and the elder flung himself to the earth in fear.

     There was a wet sound, hollow and sudden.

     The girl sank to her knees, and she fell as if she were beneath the sea, slow and soft. She came to rest, kneeling on the soft earth, her hair playing gently in the cool breeze. The sun shone brightly, glittering crimson on her breast, where her small hands held the dark shaft of a spear. The blackness faded from her eyes and she whispered something to the winds. Then her eyes saw no more, and she was dead.

     The elder raised his head from beneath his arms. The warrior helped him to his feet, slowly, for he was bent with age.

     “It is over.” The warrior said. There was relief in his voice and in his face. “The God is appeased.”

     The elder stood for a long time, silent and still. A sound was growing, deep in the jungle. It began as a low rumble, but as it grew closer, the sounds became clearer.

     “No.” The elder said, simply.

     The sound grew to a roar, and in that roar was the beat of hooves, and the shriek of pigs.

     “Elder, what is that?” asked the warrior, drawing his short hunting knife from his belt. The elder smiled and sat down cross-legged on the soft earth.

     “His children,” the elder said, and then he closed his eyes, and waited for the boars.

####

     Sam Kilar hated the jungle. He hated the insects, and the stifling heat, and the wetness that seemed to be everywhere. But most of all, Sam hated the apparently infinite number of dialects spoken by the mountain tribes. Sam and his team had been trekking through the jungle for three weeks now, looking for a legendary lost tribe, of which he was seriously beginning to doubt the existence.

     Sam was the host of a... well, a less than marginally successful television program, and when a contact of his had heard whispers about a lost tribe deep in the jungle, Sam had practically felt his ratings going up.

     Now, after three weeks in a lush, green hell, Sam didn’t care if his show got cancelled or not. He just wanted a hot bath and a warm bed back in England, and something other than oatmeal or protein bars in his stomach. Sam didn’t want to have to drink one more drop of lukewarm water. Sam wanted a cold beer.

     He was halfway through a daydreamed bottle of lager when a shout came from one of the porters somewhere ahead of him.

     He took a few more steps, and there was the village. Sam caught his breath. There were two dozen dwellings or more, and over the entrance to each a lock of hair was hung, exactly as his contact had described.

     There were bodies everywhere.

     Most of them were torn to pieces, and from the smell, Sam guessed that they had been out in the sun for quite a while. A few wild pigs lay dead amidst the carnage, slashed open or bristling with spears. Sam had heard of boars attacking hunters, and even small hunting parties, but never anything like this.

     Sam walked through the empty village. The crew followed close behind, the whir of the ENG camera comforting to him as it panned across the massacre, zooming in for close-ups of the blood stained walls. The calm was broken by the snap of a camera shutter as the photographer took stills of broken tusks and crushed skulls.

     There was a shout, and a rush to the center of the village. The shutter snapped and the camera whirred.

     A small fire burned there. An old man sat beside it, cross-legged, stirring the embers gently with his walking stick. The walking stick looked as old as the man, the end tipped with mottled white bone.

     The translator that Sam had hired was a short, dark man with jet-black hair and an easy smile. He knelt by the old man and spoke to him in different dialects, asking, “Do you understand me?” until the old man’s eyes lit up and he nodded.

     “Ask him what happened here,” Sam told the translator.

     “Yeah, no shit,” the translator muttered. Then he spoke quietly to the old man, and the old man smiled. He drew his walking stick from the fire and pushed the end into the soft, bloody earth. The old man looked up at Sam with milky-grey eyes, and spoke a few words that Sam didn’t understand.

     “What’d he say?” Sam asked.

     The translator stood up and looked at Sam.

     “Let me tell you a story.”