ICE BURIAL: The Oldest Human Murder Mystery (The Mother People Series Book 3) (52 page)

The joy
slowly
faded
, pu
shed aside by the
longing for Lief
that seemed never to leave her, but its memory did not.
Zena
knew she had felt it and would feel it again, knew that one day she would be able to embrace it and hold it within her. She knew, too, that one day she would be able to stop blaming herself for Lief’s death. She had not quite reached that place yet, but at last she knew it could happen.

One day I will live again
, she thought to herself.
Not just yet, but one day it will happen.
She had not known that before.

The light was fading before Durak drew her to her feet. They had almost reached the hut when he spoke. “Now you must give purpose to his death,” he told
Zena
, his face stern, “by honoring the Mother, by speaking of Her
, representing her wherever you go, as is your mission.

“Yours and Teran’s,” he added. “She may not remember but she is still Teran. Together, you can do it and do it well.
”

Tears sprang up in
Zena
’s eyes, because
so
much time had passed, and all she had thought of was her own pain. How could she have allowed herself to be so blind, so unthinking, for all these months?

Zena
must live
,
Lief
had said, and he
had
believed it so fervently that he
had given his life so she could continue the mission entrusted to her by the Goddess
. She
had failed to honor that sacrifice.

It will not be so any longer,
she vowed to herself. From this moment on, she would do everything in her power to make sure Lief had not died in vain.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

The sun was warm on
Zena
’s
face as she climbed once more to the place where
Lief
had died and settled on a bare rock.
The
outline of the ridges where
they had huddled during the storm was visible now,
though to dig into t
he frozen solidity between them
was still impossible. Even
Lief
’s
pack, his precious axe and the other possessions she had left near him, were still buried in ice
and
might never be found.

For hours,
Zena
sat there, alone with
Lief
and the Goddess, remembering, accepting. The agony that had once afflicted her was muted now, though sadness was still there, a part of her life. But so was joy, the joy she had felt when she had first understood that
Lief
was still with her in his way,
and the
joy she felt at knowing she carried his child within her. For a long time she had not dared to believe, had thought her bleeding had not come because she was so ill. But now she was sure. There was no other way to explain a rapidly expanding belly! The tiny life must have sprung up inside her during
her last trip with
Lief
, she realized, and was glad.
He had died on that trip, but he had left her a precious legacy.

She felt
Lief
now, all around her, and she drew in her pleasure that he was here along with the sadness that he was not. There was sadness, too, because she knew she might never find him, might never be able to bring him back to the village and bury him where he belonged.

“
But I am where I belong now,
”
Lief
objected, and
Zena
was certain she could hear his voice.
“
I am buried where I wish to be,
high in
the peaks we loved.
”

Zena
smiled, almost laughed. The words had sounded so much like
Lief
!
“
You are right,
”
she told him, still smiling.
“
Yes. You are right. This is where you belong, high in the mountains where we found such joy.
”

“
An ice burial,
”
she said then, nodding.
“
Yes, that is right for you,
Lief
. We will give you an ice burial right here, in the high and beautiful place you have chosen.
”

And so it was that on another warm day she led
Teran and
Larak and the other
villagers up the mountain to the place where
Lief
lay. One at a time, the people
placed wildflowers reverently on the mound of ice under which he lay buried, and
remembered him with their words
,
spoke of how fine and brave he was, so the Mother would know of their great love and admiration for him
. When each had spoken, they
listened intently as
Zena
and Larak conducted the familiar rituals and commended
Lief
to the Goddess.

“
Though his body lies buried in ice,
”
Zena
said to the Goddess,
“
I know his spirit lives on in the stars he loved. Keep him there always so that one day I may find him again, and we can fly together for all time.
”

Zena
lingered for a moment after the others had left. In a few months, they would journey to the standing stones, where she would take her place as wise one for all the Mother People, and before she left she wanted
Lief
to know that she was no longer afraid of the responsibility.
Partly that was because Teran had returned
and would help her
, but she also knew that even if s
he was not yet as strong or as wise as Larak or Runor,
s
he felt confident
now
of her ability to speak for the Goddess.

Lief
seemed to hear her thoughts; all the way down the mount
ain, all during the
months that followed,
Zena
felt him sending her his support and his love. She drew it into her, felt it strengthen her and give her courage.

That year, the numbers of Mother People who gathered at the standing stones was greater than ever before. Everyone in villages newly restored to the Goddess wanted to come; all the others went as well, to reaffirm the faith that had sustained them for so many years. From the mountains, the valleys and the coasts, they came, traveling slowly south in a line so long no one could count the numbers. All along the way, they helped each other, carrying the old ones and the children when they were tired, sharing food, telling stories of all that had happened to them in recent years. And when all of them had finally gathered in the sacred place, the stones themselves rang with the sound of their voices, as they greeted the Goddess and told Her of their love and gratitude for all She
did
for them. It was a ceremony that was remembered and savored, spoken of over and over again, for all the years of the Mother People.

The gathering that year was remembered for
other
reason
s. One was the
joyous
fact that Teran had been found and was slo
w
ly but surely recovering her memory. The other was equally momentous.
On the last night of the ceremonies,
Zena
gave birth to twin daughters, her daughters and
Lief
’s
, in the sacred circle of stones itself. As
before
,
the first born was
called
Zena
, the second Teran.
The Mother People were overjoyed, and so was
Zena
, especially since both children were healthy and strong. In later years, each of them gave birth to twins as well, as did their daughters, and so the tradition continued.

They were good years, peaceful years. Many children were born, and flourished, and the Mother People slowly spread across the earth. Everywhere they settled, they created circles of stone
.
As the years passed, they became expert at raising huge
chunks of
stone, at placing them in circles and in long
columns
to mark the way for the processions. They always set the stones in high, open places, where they would be visible for many miles so that even Mother People from far away could see them, and come to worship. Hundreds and thousands of them came, to thank the Goddess, to ask for Her help and guidance, to remember those who had come before them. Generation after generation, they told the story of the Mother People to their children, so it would never be forgotten. They spoke of the ancestors who had made the long and painful trek from the place where the Mother People were first born, a place of strange animals and deserts of unendurable heat, of magnificent mountains and turbulent rivers, and great stretches of savannah broken only by an occasional tree and the huge herds that moved across them, of the ancestors who had painted on the cave walls more than thirty thousand years before in the mountains where some of their people still lived, of the people closer in time who had discovered the first standing stones on an island now buried by the great sea.

They spoke as well of the wise ones called
Zena
- the first one who had brought the Mother
to them
even before they knew fully how to speak, the next
Zena
who had led her people from their ancient home
to a verdant land near a great body of water that led to the sea, of
those who came after her, how each undertook the challenge entrusted to her by the Goddess so that the Mother People might live on. They told the story of the ice burial high in the mountains, too,
performed by another Zena for her beloved Lief,
the man who had given his life
so that she would live.

He lies buried in ice still,
the story-tellers said, for they had no way of knowing that more than five thousand years later,
Lief
’s
body would be wrenched from the ravine that had enclosed him for so long, or that after all those years, his story, and the story of the Mother People, would once again be told.

EPILOGUE

The Mother People are gone now, destroyed by invaders with different beliefs, not of love and compassion but of the rightness of violence and exploitation. With the Mother People went their stories, the knowledge they had sought for so long to preserve. All that is left of them now are their ancient circles of stone, that grew larger and more commanding with every passing year. Even when later they were persecuted and driven from their homes, the Mother People continued to build their magnificent monuments
. Sometimes they were
forced to build them by
conqueror
s as
memorial
s
to
the
mselves
,
but the
se
tyrants
never knew, never even guessed that the
laborers
they disdained
were master builders who
instead
left their
own
knowledge, their beliefs, their story, buried deep in the stones
.
The knowledge
is
still there, if only we could interpret it. It lies in the setting, the placement of the stones, in the memories, the hopes and dreams that the Mother People sank into the earth beneath the stones, in the spirit of sanctity that still pervades the great monuments.

One day, perhaps, we will come to understand what these long-forgotten people wished to tell us; perhaps, too, we will finally come to appreciate the precious legacy of peace and compassion they bequeathed us. It is even possible that we will learn to live as they did
once again
. Signs of violence are everywhere today, but there are other, more hopeful signs as well - a renewed concern for the earth, that we have plundered it beyond its capacity to renew itself, an insistence that women
in all parts of the world
must be able to control their
own lives and their
fertility, that women as well as men should be our spiritual leaders, our politicians, if wise decisions are to be made. Perhaps we even see signs in the persistence of our reverence for Mary, Mother of us all, in the many sightings of her calm face, in the reports of her voice, telling us of the need for peace and love and compassion.

Most hopeful of all may be the yearning in so many hearts for fulfillment deeper than the financial gain, the accumulation of possessions that drives us, for relief from the relentless competition, the frantic pace that marks our lives. We long for a better way, though what that way should be we do not know. We know only that we yearn for it, that despite all protestations telling us such a time never existed, we cannot rid ourselves of a belief that there exists a long-forgotten
past, a garden of Eden, when
we lived our lives in harmony with the earth and with each other.

Will such a time ever come again? We cannot tell. All we have to remind us of that time are the ancient circles of stone, the magnificent and still-compelling standing stones. They are our only legacy of the Mother People, who are the ancestors of us all.