By Blood We Live (10 page)

Long ago, long before Hattia and Assyria, before Sumeru, before the Pharaohs raised their big stones, palm shadows danced on the waters of Iteru under the eyes of the gods. These were the old gods, before Ra and Horus and Zeus and Hera, before young Yaweh and gentle Yeshua. Before An and Enlil, before Nin-khursag and Enkil, before even Taimat and Abzu, who were not the first. Before all these a travelling people stopped for a season by Iteru, thousands of years before it became the Nile. They built no stones, but lived in tents of skin and fur. Thin strong men and women. They loved the desert sky at night, where the gods wrote in stars that touched the earth’s face. They ate the meat of goat, cow and pig. They ate the date and the fig. They sacrificed to their gods.

The people were the Maru.

Edu was their king, and his wife was Liku, the queen. They had a three-year-old son, Imut.

In those days there were passages from the Middle world to the Upper and the Lower Realms. It was given to some among the Maru to open these passages. They opened them with songs and with the blood of the living and with the smoke and fire of burning. They were called, in their tongue, the Anum, the Guardians, and mightiest among them was Lehek-shi.

Lehek-shi was enamoured of Liku, the queen, and she of him. They became lovers. Lehek-shi made a drink of the bark of the aho tree and the berries of the nawar sweetened with dates and coconut milk, and in the evening Liku gave the drink to Edu, her husband, and made love to him. Then when he slept she stole from the tent and went through the darkness to meet Lehek-shi.

This went on for five moons, and the king never suspected. His wife worked with great care to give him pleasure and his sleep was deep. He confided to
his closest friends that he was the luckiest of all the Maru, to know such wifely devotion and to sleep such untroubled sleep.

But Liku and Lehek-shi were not content. Stolen hours by the grace of drug and darkness were not enough. Their passion was rare and real and fiercer than the sacrificial fire, and its patience with secrecy was at an end. Therefore they resolved between the kisses of their mouths to kill Edu. After the period given for mourning, Liku would be free to choose a new husband—and naturally she would choose Lehek-shi.

But Lehek-shi was full of foreboding. He knew the ways of the Upper and Lower realms. When a Maru of pure heart died, the gods of the Upper realm sent down to earth one of their servants—the Kamu—to put its mouth upon the mouth of the corpse and breathe in the soul for its passage to the Upper realm. Released in the Upper realm the soul would tell its story—and the gods would take vengeance on the murderers.

“There is an another way,” Lehek-shi told Liku, with his arms wrapped around her in the darkness. “But it is a risk.”

“What other way?” Liku asked. Her hair was full of the scent of oranges.

“We can send his soul to the Lower realm. Amaz will take it. But Amaz is a hard god to bargain with.”

“If Amaz is a risk,” Liku said, climbing astride her lover, “the wrath of the Upper gods is a certainty.”

Lehek-shi entered her, and the decision was made.

Lehek-shi sacrificed and made a burning and inhaled the smoke of the branch that gave sight and sang the song that opened the way to the Lower realm and let his spirit go out to seek audience with Amaz.

The threshold of Amaz’s kingdom was guarded by three of his messengers, those dark opposites of the blessed Kamu, the Izul. Invisible in the Middle realm, in the Lower they were terrible to behold.

Lehek-shi was a diviner, one of the Anum, and had by birth the right to hold discourse with the beings of the other realms, but still, this was the kingdom of Amaz, and he was afraid.

One of the Izul carried his message to the demon god, and eventually Amaz himself came to the threshold.

“I will do as you ask,” Amaz said, after Lehek-shi had told him what he wanted. “In return for what issues from your first coupling with the queen after the king’s death. Understand me. If there is a child, its soul must come down to me. Thereafter I will hold our pact fulfilled.”

Lehek-shi vowed inside himself that there would be no child—even in those days there were the ways and means to make the chances of new life slight, and they had only to avoid conception once—and so he agreed to Amaz’s terms. (And even if there is a child, he thought, Liku will relinquish it if our happiness is at stake.) With the bargain sealed, therefore, Lehek-shi’s spirit took its leave of Amaz and returned to his body in the Middle realm.

The lovers had to wait. Even with the dark god’s bargain sealed Edu’s murder must have no earthly witnesses. So Liku began to beguile her husband.

“I never have you to myself,” she complained, sweetly. “Even at night there are guards outside the tent, listening to us.”

Edu was puzzled. “They are for our safety,” he said. “They are spears and shields. They aren’t listening to us! And what if they are? They are servants!”

But Liku persisted. “But don’t you understand that sometimes I want you simply, as a man, as my husband, just the two of us, alone under the stars?”

For a while Edu made light of it, but eventually Liku’s pleading prevailed, and he agreed to spend one night with her away from the camp, alone, man and woman, husband and wife, together under the stars.

“The soul has understanding,” Lehek-shi had warned Liku. “If it senses death near it will rush up into the head to be ready for the Kamu’s kiss. Therefore we must surprise the soul. You must keep the soul distracted.”

Liku kept the soul distracted. She even had thought for the approach of Lehek-shi’s shadow, and made Edu lie on his back with the low full moon in front of him so Lehek-shi, approaching with the long, sharpened flint stone from behind the king’s head, would make no change in the light.

Edu’s soul, at the moment of joy, knew nothing of what fell.

Lehek-shi struck hard and fast, and in three blows severed Edu’s head from his shoulders.

Amaz, the lord of the Lower realm, sent one of the Izul to claim the king’s soul. Not from the mouth, into which the soul in its ignorant bliss had had no chance to flee, but from the mouth between the buttocks, the speaker of filth. The soul had no choice. It could not remain in the body after death. It could not resist the indrawn breath of the Izul. The Izul swallowed it and carried it down to Amaz.

One moon later, the lovers were married. Imut was too young to take up the throne, so Liku ruled as queen until he should come of age. Lehek-shi was her consort.

But in the Lower realm, the soul of Edu would not cease its lamentations.

When Lehek-shi told Liku of the price of the bargain, she was not very afraid. She knew her monthly bleed well enough, and when the chances of conceiving were slim. She and Lehek-shi waited. And when they did come together the first time after Edu’s death, Lehek-shi made an offering in the fire to Nendai, the god of prudence, and wore on his manhood the dried skin of pig-gut to prevent any seed from entering Liku’s womb.

But a splinter from the wood he’d cut for the burning lodged under Lehek-shi’s thumbnail, and tore a small hole in the minnan—and though the lovers willed it not, Liku was made with child.

In the Lower realm, the demon god Amaz felt the new life stir.

When Liku realised what had happened, she was afraid. By the third moon without her bleed she could feel love wrapped around the child inside her. Lehek-shi knew he would never get her to relinquish their baby of her own free will. Nor, as her belly grew bigger and she put his hands on her to feel the first kicks of life, could he bear the thought of sending his son or daughter down to the kingdom of Amaz. The lovers had murdered together
and bargained with a demon god—and the passion and understanding between them was stronger than ever.

The Maru numbered little over two thousand, and among that number were some dozen women at the same stage of their carrying as Liku. But all the women gave birth before the queen, despite the drugs and songs of the wise women, and between Liku’s baby—a boy, whom they named Tahek—and the latest born to the tribe was almost one whole moon.

Nonetheless, the substitution was made, the mother bribed (Lehek-shi would deal with her if she made trouble) and the replacement child—rubbed in the blood and birth fluids of Liku for disguise—beheaded in Tahek’s place.

The Izul came up and sucked out the soul from the tiny mouth between the buttocks and carried it down to Amaz.

Three years passed. Liku and Lehek-shi believed their trick had worked. Their son Tahek grew strong and healthy. The Maru moved north, but the cold weather stayed close behind them.

One day a great snowstorm caught them. The winds blew and a noon darkness fell. Liku and Lehek-shi became separated from the tribe. In the gloom, they heard the howling of wolves.

They seemed to be in nothingness. There were no trees, no rocks. The division of land and sky had vanished. The snow drove hard and plied deep. The wind was cruel. Liku’s fur tore from her and went up into the sky. They tried to catch it—but it was gone. Lehek-shi made her wear his.

For hours they could not count, for a time that might have been days they struggled through the storm, with no knowledge of where they were going, only with the hope of finding shelter. Lehek-shi grew very weak from the cold. At last, exhausted, he fell.

When Liku knelt to try to warm him, she gave a cry. There, not twenty paces away, was the edge of a forest.

With what little strength that remained to her she dragged Lehek-shi into the shelter of the trees. The wind died, suddenly. For a few moments the lovers lay together, unable to move. Darkness came over them.

“Come with me,” a voice said. “If you do not get warmth and food, you will both die.”

Liku opened her eyes.

Standing over her was a dark-eyed man, great in height, wrapped in the skin of a wolf. He bore a bloody spear and around his neck a long loop of animal teeth. A red birth mark stained half his face.

“Come,” he repeated. “I will carry him. Be swift. He has not much time.”

Not knowing if she was awake or dreaming, Liku followed the man, who bore Lehek-shi over his shoulder as though his weight were no more than a child’s. She was near death herself, from hunger and cold.

“Here,” the man said. “I have food and warmth for you both.”

Under two mighty trees lay the body of a giant wolf, slain. The beast was bigger than three men. It had been slit from its throat to its loins and its innards cleanly removed.

“I have not means to make the fire,” the man said, “but if you are willing to pay my small price you can eat of the animal’s meat and shelter in his skin, and in the morning the storm will have passed, and your people will find you. They are coming this way, but will not get here before the sun rises.”

Liku, frozen and starving and weak, reached for the animal’s hide—but the stranger stopped her.

“You have not agreed, freely, to pay my small price,” he said.

“What is your price?” Liku asked. “I am a leader of my people. I can give you all that I have!”

The stranger shook his head. “I ask very little,” he said. “A drop of blood from each of you, and the animal’s warmth and meat is yours. Give me this courtesy offering freely, and you will live to see the sunrise.”

At that moment the clouds tore a little, and the full moon sailed free on a field of black.

Liku’s heart misgave her, but she knew that without food and shelter the stranger’s words would be proved true before morning. “Very well,” she gasped. “A drop from each of us. But hurry! I feel death near me!”

The stranger took one of the teeth from around his neck and gave it to
Liku. “Do it freely,” he repeated. “Because your life and the life of your beloved is precious to you.”

Liku took the tooth and saw that it was sharp. Quickly, too cold to feel the pain, she made a tiny cut on her thumb and did the same for Lehek-shi.

“Very well,” the stranger said, and lifting open the belly of the wolf, he cut several pieces of the animal’s flesh. Liku, driven by her need, ate, and fed Lehek-shi, though Lehek-shi could barely open his eyes, and seemed still to be wandering in death’s country. The meat tasted sweet and tender, and Liku was surprised.

“Now hurry,” the stranger said. “Into the beast. There is a second storm coming from which the trees will not be shelter enough.”

Liku dragged herself and Lehek-shi into the warmth of the wolf’s body while the stranger watched. Again Liku was surprised that there was no smell of death in the animal, only the feeling of warmth and succour. The stranger watched, and, when the lovers were settled, he smiled and spoke:

“I bring you greetings from Amaz, god of the Lower Realm,” he said. “The meat you have eaten was human flesh, and your blood is mingled with the blood of the beast. Now every time the moon is full, the wolf will take shelter in you, and your craving for that same human flesh will be more than you can bear. Those who survive your bite will carry the same curse. You do not cheat my master and go unrepaid. Farewell!”

And with that, the stranger walked away and was swallowed by the darkness.

So it was that the races of wolves and men were mixed. In the years that followed many tried to free themselves from the Curse, but it was not until people returned to the banks of Iteru that