“My vision showed much,” he said, his back to her, his voice faint on the night air.
“I hear the words of Killer of Lion,” she whispered. Promising to say nothing of his words, she continued, “and I hold the words of the Speaker of the Hunters and Warriors tight in my breast.”
“I saw battle. We will fight together, make war together, side by side, against the pale-skinned ones from the east. And you shall be my Beloved Warrior Woman, who shall take my place when I fall in battle.” With the words, he stepped over the edge of the ice and dropped into the hole. At the last moment, his hands caught the staff and broke his plunge.
???
Killer of Lion breathed deeply of the night air. Though he was still shivering from his bath in the women’s pool, he once again removed his clothes, because a man did not enter into the Passage of the Womb Circle clothed, no more than he came forth clothed. Few men had been born again, passing twice from thewomb into the world. If he survived, he would carry the horror and the honor for all of his remaining days. With a final breath, he dropped to his knees and lifted the hide flap, crawling into the darkness. The hide dropped into place behind him, leaving him in blackness, dark as a cave, cramped tight, sitting on his heels, his knees drawn up, his head bumping the stone roof of the passage. His flesh sweated yet was icy cold. Fear settled into his bowels.
The passage was tight. His shoulders would be scored by the stone while making this passage. He felt to the sides, and his fingers encountered rocks, deeply etched with swirls.
The waves of the floods. Reverently, he traced them as he crawled slowly forward, the floor unexpectedly uneven and rough. He reached down to feel . . . thin wood buried in clay. His fingers traced the wood, all rounded and worn, all about the same size. At one end, he felt a sharp edge. He realized the wood flooring was made of staffs. All the staffs of the women were brought here when their trees claimed them. He knew that, but . . . he and the other men had assumed they were burned in the fires of winter. Not placed on the floor of the Womb Passage.
He was resting on the power of . . . of all the women who had gone to their trees.
His body reacted, flashing with shock that quickly became the fear-dread-panic of the grave, of death, of the end of all. His flesh went cold and slick and damp. His breath came fast and too short in the blackness of the passage of his second birth.
But he did not die. Eyes straining, seeing nothing, he crawled forward, his hands and knees flat on the staffs, his shoulders touching to either side, as the passage narrowed and curved. Ahead, he made out a faint red glow. He reached to the redness and his fingers met the suppleness of hide, a hide so pale, so thin that light was showing through it. It was so supple that it moved with the slightest breeze.
Killer of Lion knew this hide. It was the hide of the pink-eyed white deer, the White Hart he had killed in his first season as a hunter. Such deer were rare, and portended both change and rebirth. He had presented the entire deer at the entrance of the Womb Passage to honor the Old Mother who led all the tribes. He had never known what Old Mother of Winter Trees had done with his gift.
She had hung it here. In the women’s most sacred place.
There was an inevitability in finding this hide here, in this place, at this time. An assurance. His heart steadied. His breath blew deep and slow. He pushed aside the hide and crawled into the warmth of the Womb Circle.
???
At dawn, Killer of Lion crawled out of the Womb Circle and crossed to the opening in the wall. He was sweat-streaked and his leaves were dead; small vines hung limp and parched from his fingertips and his lower body. As he crossed from the outer wall of the Women’s Circle into the hunters’ outer wall, he collapsed into the arms of his hunters. They doused him with fresh icy water and dusted his body with chalk, turning him white all over, to drive away the dangerous spirits of women. They carried him into the Men’s Circle, where they fed him and painted his body with their hands dipped in powdered red pigment mixed with the fat of the bear. They wrapped him in the largest segment of the hide of the lion he had killed as a youth. They built the fire high. Around his body, they placed the bones of the man who had struck him and had given him his vision eye. They brought in drums made from the skins of small animals and they began to beat their drums to drive away the power of the spirit of the women.
Killer of Lion drank much water to restore his leaves and vines, and thanked his men for their service. Then he fell into an unnatural sleep, where he dreamed of tight passages and the fragmented visions of the future.
When he woke from the strange sleep, he sat up and drank and washed his hands and his face. He spat upon the ground and placed his palms upon the spit on the clay floor and whispered to his men, “I will no longer be called Killer of Lion. I am now Sees into Darkness.”
They murmured in the dark. The circle was packed with men, bearing witness to his words and deeds, so he added to his vow. “I have seen much foulness that the pale-skinned men will bring. I have seen my own visions and heard the visions of the Old Mother of Winter Trees. Those who come to make war against us shall be known asFarmersandCity Builders. And they will cut down our trees and destroy the Earth.”
There was much grumbling and anger from the men.
His voice grew stronger. Loudly, he said, “The full moon begins the time of change. All who gather to hear the Visions of the Womb and the Visions of the Hunters and Warriors shall no more make war against each other. “From this day forth, there will be war only against the white-skinned invaders. Swear it upon the earth. Swear it upon your tree, each of you. Swear, or be cast from the mating circles forever.”
Most of the men instantly swore, and then there was silence. Time passed and the enormity of what the Speaker demanded of them sank in. One by one, all but one swore. In anger, Fishes Whale with Spear left the men’s circle through the straight entrance. Fishes Whale with Spear had been a childhood friend. The visions of Sees in Darkness had told him some men would leave the circle and band together, to raid and make trouble, but there was nothing he could do to stop thatfrom happening. Not until the day he tracked them down and killed them with his own hand.
Sees in Darkness looked out over his men. “Bring meat and broth and dried fruit. We will feast, for the last of the tribes are to gather soon, and we must share the visions of the change with them as well.”
???
At dawn on the fullness of Cold Wolf Howls Moon, Old Mother of Winter Trees woke with a cough that shook her body. Bloody gobbets collected in the moss brought by her women to cleanse her. At her command, they built up the fire and washed her body with various decoctions of strong herbs, some with wormwood, some with mint. They fed her strong infusions of willow bark and others made with dried berries and rosehips.
The full moon would rise after nightfall and set before dawn. She asked of the Earth that she would live that long, though she knew the Earth would not allow her to stay in her body much longer. All of her body was tight and heavy, slick as old wood, the bark long rotten away, leaving only the tight grain. Her tree called. She felt the ache of it in her bones, in her joints, in her spine and her belly. Itcalled . . .Her time was near. This time, she would not revive from illness. According to the visions she had shared with Killer of Lion, now known forevermore as Sees into Darkness, she would be taken before the end of the three days of the full moon.
She asked of her women, “Does Sees into Darkness still live?”
“He still lives and his root is strong,” Make War said.
Old Mother took this as a good omen. She said, “Tonight, my staff will choose the next Old Mother.”
They murmured, various tones threaded through their words like knots in wool: excitement, fear, worry, pride, hope, and some sounding of sly covetousness.
From her own memories, she gave them instructions. The women went out into the snow and dragged in dead limbs, gathered fallen leaves, and cut fresh fir branches to create potent smoke for fires. They placed them below the Speakers’ bench at the west joining of the outer walls. Outside, she heard the sounds of the hunters, men and women both, as they dug into the earth to find the firepit there. The circle had been buried when the staff of the former Old Mother chose her, many hands of years in the past. No one alive knew of its existence but her.
