Free The Sorcerer of the Wildeeps by Kai Ashante Wilson
Authors: Kai Ashante Wilson
He couldn’t hear his own thoughts, could hardly think them.
Run
, since he couldn’t fly. Perform some worthy feat. A feat as hard and perilous as possible.
Kill something
. He too went out on the Mainway—but eastward through the gates, and then south toward the jukiere and Wildeeps.
There is a pace that a fit man can hold, running on and on, nearly forever. The sun westered slowly across the wide afternoon sky. South of Mother of Waters, there was rocky country through which a millennium of caravans had blazed a trail winding far from the Daughter, down shallower stretches of deep-cut arroyos, around high mesas, across scrub flats. This was neither the season nor perhaps the year that rains would fall; only the intermittent green of sagebrush, pampas, and acacia relieved the droughted shades of gray and dun.
Demane at first heard and smelled little more than anyone would. The pounding and raised dust of his own footfalls, mesquite hanging in the hot air, calls of mourning doves and cicada. Then the vacant hush of human perception began to fill with bright effigies of sound and odor. What was long passed, what was hidden, what was remote came clear to his senses.
A subtle roar built of discrete sounds. The stormbird heard insectskitter and the slide of snakes over stone. He felt it, wind too faint for his skin to feel before, and heard it, rasping particles of dust across the hardpan. The dazzle of scents bloomed. He passed the cold acridity of gecko, and rattler, and ground croc. Old bones murmured stories to him in passing. A child mummifying beneath a wayside cairn: dead of blood cancer. Manifold dung and urine, steer men lion antelope dog, whispered what age and sex, sick or healthy, how long since passing this way.
Faraway some early night dog barked. He’d seen the packs harry a solitary lion or stag antelope in the prime of strength, scores of muzzles stripping the prey of its fleshly raiment, gobbet by mouthful, and sacrificing ten or more dogs to immense antlers, or the might of a lion’s paw, before the better beast was pulled down by sheer rabid numbers. Demane masked his body’s odor in the landscape’s, as he should have done at the gates of Mother of Waters. He quit the beaten trail and ran upcountry, where the lookout and cover were better.
The stormbird beat nearer the surface than it had ever risen—even on sacred grounds back home, in the green hills. He ran harder. His legs and lungs refused to tire. Strength and sensation swamped the indweller, that part of consciousness which thinks and feels.
I hardly ate today
were the last words to trouble his mind for a while. He was ravenous. And below him on the blazed trail, hidden in thick tamarisk, he caught the tattoo of a thumb-sized heart pumping frantic blood. The rich scent came too, of a small shivering body, furred and hot. There was good food just out of sight, a jack-hare about to lose its wager whether to run or hide. In that tussock of weeds right . . .
there
. . .
Buoyant on spirals of warmth.
There athwart the west snaked the Daughter, glittering gray, and down there the southern Crossings, a thicker python, wider waters. He plunged into fresh headwinds. In his shadow stampeding antelope small as crickets separated in the same patternly accord as a birdflock, scores bounding left, scores right, through blond grasses that rippled over the world’s skin. Aw, let them go. He wasn’t so hungry anymore. Better to ride
more soft
rising heat up where . . .
where, exactly? The skyfaring dream came to ground. Every tremor of his lids and lashes abraded the dream’s stuff, and his eyes opening destroyed it.
Fast water sloshed over him, rocking him. Legs outstretched, leaning back on his elbows, Demane awoke in the shoals of a broad stream, wallowing. His bag hung submerged in the current. Panicked, he jumped up. The bag’s flap was thrown back, but water hadn’t entered. Wetness sheeted from the leather and it was dry again in moments.
Run
, since he couldn’t fly. Perform some worthy feat. A feat as hard and perilous as possible.
Kill something
. He too went out on the Mainway—but eastward through the gates, and then south toward the jukiere and Wildeeps.
There is a pace that a fit man can hold, running on and on, nearly forever. The sun westered slowly across the wide afternoon sky. South of Mother of Waters, there was rocky country through which a millennium of caravans had blazed a trail winding far from the Daughter, down shallower stretches of deep-cut arroyos, around high mesas, across scrub flats. This was neither the season nor perhaps the year that rains would fall; only the intermittent green of sagebrush, pampas, and acacia relieved the droughted shades of gray and dun.
Demane at first heard and smelled little more than anyone would. The pounding and raised dust of his own footfalls, mesquite hanging in the hot air, calls of mourning doves and cicada. Then the vacant hush of human perception began to fill with bright effigies of sound and odor. What was long passed, what was hidden, what was remote came clear to his senses.
A subtle roar built of discrete sounds. The stormbird heard insectskitter and the slide of snakes over stone. He felt it, wind too faint for his skin to feel before, and heard it, rasping particles of dust across the hardpan. The dazzle of scents bloomed. He passed the cold acridity of gecko, and rattler, and ground croc. Old bones murmured stories to him in passing. A child mummifying beneath a wayside cairn: dead of blood cancer. Manifold dung and urine, steer men lion antelope dog, whispered what age and sex, sick or healthy, how long since passing this way.
Faraway some early night dog barked. He’d seen the packs harry a solitary lion or stag antelope in the prime of strength, scores of muzzles stripping the prey of its fleshly raiment, gobbet by mouthful, and sacrificing ten or more dogs to immense antlers, or the might of a lion’s paw, before the better beast was pulled down by sheer rabid numbers. Demane masked his body’s odor in the landscape’s, as he should have done at the gates of Mother of Waters. He quit the beaten trail and ran upcountry, where the lookout and cover were better.
The stormbird beat nearer the surface than it had ever risen—even on sacred grounds back home, in the green hills. He ran harder. His legs and lungs refused to tire. Strength and sensation swamped the indweller, that part of consciousness which thinks and feels.
I hardly ate today
were the last words to trouble his mind for a while. He was ravenous. And below him on the blazed trail, hidden in thick tamarisk, he caught the tattoo of a thumb-sized heart pumping frantic blood. The rich scent came too, of a small shivering body, furred and hot. There was good food just out of sight, a jack-hare about to lose its wager whether to run or hide. In that tussock of weeds right . . .
there
. . .
Buoyant on spirals of warmth.
There athwart the west snaked the Daughter, glittering gray, and down there the southern Crossings, a thicker python, wider waters. He plunged into fresh headwinds. In his shadow stampeding antelope small as crickets separated in the same patternly accord as a birdflock, scores bounding left, scores right, through blond grasses that rippled over the world’s skin. Aw, let them go. He wasn’t so hungry anymore. Better to ride
more soft
rising heat up where . . .
where, exactly? The skyfaring dream came to ground. Every tremor of his lids and lashes abraded the dream’s stuff, and his eyes opening destroyed it.
Fast water sloshed over him, rocking him. Legs outstretched, leaning back on his elbows, Demane awoke in the shoals of a broad stream, wallowing. His bag hung submerged in the current. Panicked, he jumped up. The bag’s flap was thrown back, but water hadn’t entered. Wetness sheeted from the leather and it was dry again in moments.