Author Archives: kraxon

Akiowa sat with her back against a fir, looking out over the vast lake and its islands, occasionally brushing ants from her skirts, wishing she could push her thoughts away so easily. But the ants kept coming back as well, so perhaps there was no difference after all.

The spear had led her to so many villages, stirring so many painful memories of a lush valley – fruit trees, earth lodges, well-tilled fields. Memories of loving parents, a revered rock totem, an unhappy girl walking alone at dead of night. And beyond memory, the haunting vision of grief for a lost child. At each village her sorrow had grown. And guilt. So much guilt.

She’d never told the spear how she’d come to be enslaved, but perhaps it knew, and that was why it had brought her to this place, with its dark firs and thin soil and no people, where there was nothing to recall her reckless, inexcusable folly.

But no. There were people. A bull-boat came into view from behind an island, a woman paddling steadily towards the mainland away to Akiowa’s left.

The spear sent its thrill into her hand. “Must I?” she asked. The thrill came again. With a sigh she got to her feet.

Continue reading

“Welcome, Storyteller,” said the woman, as laughing girls and young children danced around Akiowa. “I am Nadie. Forgive my man for not greeting you, but the menfolk are all out hunting.”

No, not all, for a boy of perhaps twelve years stood watching, a scowl on his face. His left leg was withered, wasted, and he leaned heavily on a stick.

“Siki, come meet the Storyteller,” called Nadie, but the boy turned away. “Take it not ill, Storyteller,” she continued quietly. “Sadly, my son thinks less of himself because of his leg. But come, be welcome at my home while we wait for the men.”

Baskets full of beads stood outside her lodge – stone, shell, coral, bone, turquoise – and after bringing spicebush tea and plum-bread for Akiowa, Nadie took up her work, stitching beads into strings. Another basket held finished necklaces and amulets. As Akiowa was admiring them – they were the finest she’d ever seen – the boy, Siki, appeared before her.

“My father,” he said, “is our greatest hunter.”

“And your mother is a wonderful beadworker. You can be proud of both.”

“And I’m a cripple,” he said defiantly, as if they’d argued over it. “I cannot hunt with him.”

Continue reading

Akiowa stood gazing at the totem. Remembering. Grieving. It was blue-grey stone fashioned like an eagle, nothing like the white wolf of her clan, its festival decorations sprays of spring blossom not the colourful craftwork her people would have enjoyed making. Yet its spirit was the same, and memories of the last time she’d seen the white wolf rock threatened to overwhelm her.

As though summoned by the memories, a young girl, her face creased with worry, hurriedly approached the totem. There similarity ended, for she touched the rock with hand and forehead, pushed something under the blossoms, then rushed away, all without noticing Akiowa.

Satisfying curiosity, Akiowa uncovered a scrap of painted rawhide, an eagle’s vivid essence soaring in brilliant colours. Wonderful work. But puzzling. Why had the girl left it there in such a strange manner?

#

Spring was ever a busy time – clearing, weeding, re-making the long mounds for the crops, burying rotten fish to improve the soil, planting seeds of maize, then beans and squash. Yet the women of Akiowa’s village still found time to talk or paint, while men boasted of old hunts and children played. Not here. Everyone worked, in fields which stretched as far as Akiowa could see. She wandered through the village, past mounds of thick-skinned squash – the mainstay of winter’s diet, but enough still remaining for the rest of the year – but no one noticed her until she gave the Storyteller’s call.

Continue reading

As the echoes of the Storyteller’s call faded, excited laughter filled the air. Children rushed towards Akiowa, long-legged boys whooping as they ran, girls holding hands, toddlers waddling behind. Joy streamed from every child.

No. Not every child.

A lone girl of perhaps ten summers caught Akiowa’s eye. Three times as she ran, she stumbled and fell. Children mocked her, adults expressed irritation, exasperation.

“Welcome, Storyteller!” called the headman. He led Akiowa to his home, gave her honeyed water to drink, and once the villagers had settled, the Storytelling began. And through it all, Akiowa wondered about the girl and the look of hatred on her face.

#

Eyes closed, head resting on a mossy root, arms wrapped about the spear, Akiowa sighed. The spear had rejected the comfort of the headman’s home with its new-woven sleeping mat, and had brought her into the woods to sleep. But sleep wouldn’t come.

All wasn’t well in the village. She’d sensed that as they’d gathered for the Storytelling – the squabbles, the sidelong looks – and the silence at the end confirmed it. Silence always followed a tale, as the spear’s magic still held everyone for a moment before the clamour of applause and calls for more. But the silence after her final story had been uneasy, brooding, lasting too long.

Continue reading

The spear again pushed her forward, but Akiowa held her ground behind a large pine. “No,” she said. “I don’t want to meet them.”

For some time, torn between curiosity and dismay, she’d been covertly watching the people bustling around on the far side of the frozen river.

Curiosity, for they were surely the nomads her father had once talked of – wanderers who followed their deer herds over the bleak, snow-buried land to which the spear had brought her. Everything about them was fascinating – their furs and colourful clothes, the tents they were dismantling, the pole devices for hauling baggage they’d strapped onto their large, strange-looking deer.

Dismay, because the people were obviously unhappy. Everyone’s expression was grim, children wailed, and by a lone juniper two old women sat apart, stone-faced, as if resigned to a terrible but unavoidable fate.

Dismay had won. Akiowa felt sad enough already – troubled by the unhappiness she’d met elsewhere, distressed at being unable to help, at not understanding how to help. She couldn’t bear the weight of more misery, more failure.

“Can’t you show me happiness?” she pleaded. The spear’s reply was to send its thrill into her mouth; the Storyteller’s call burst from her.

Continue reading