Zho squinted down the avenue at the Manjya leaves flapping in the wind, and realized he had never seen all the way to the end before. Fear prickled his spine. This time of evening, the sunlight should have glowed through curtains of the nävey nutrient web. Tonight, the nävey hung in thin, disconnected strands.
He dared not walk the avenue tonight, not even to bask in the setting sun at the tip, where sunlight was most plentiful. Säsey said the nävey must be conserved for the pups, whose young bodies would not thrive on sunlight alone. Zho was centuries older, but Säsey was the clanwife, and her word was to be obeyed in all things relating to the pups. If they must have nävey, then he would have to find another way to feed.
Almost without thinking, Zho knelt to scrape away a bit of loose bark before it could get caught and tear, injuring the tree. Some of the younger Manjyans had taken to wearing vines tied around their feet in fancy knots, in direct rebellion of the age-old custom of going barefooted. Zho shook his head; this tear was a direct result of the foolishness of youth. He grabbed a low branch and hoisted himself high enough to reach the avenue above, then gently shooed away the beetles that shared the nävey. Scooping a handful of the gooey orange liquid, he dropped to the avenue and smeared it over the tear, careful to cover the entire exposed area. His heart seized as he thought of the pups, but he shook off the feeling. The Manjya Tree must flourish, or the nävey would not matter.
"In your day, youth were respectful of the Manjya."
Zho looked up at Säsey's mocking smile. She was easily the most gorgeous Manjyan he knew, even dressed in her nighttime metik of rough vine weavings. Her turquoise skin still glowed from her walk through the nävey, the capillaries in her delicate face expanding to absorb the last of the pearly orange fluid. Her skin was greener, more capable of receiving nourishment from the sun than most in Drazjanta, owing to the fact that she had been born five levels above, but she looked so beautiful with the nävey on her skin that he was glad she did not settle for the sun! How could a Manjyan from as high in the tree as Säsey love someone with skin as blue as his? He had never understood, but when he invited her to join his clan, she did not make it an issue.
Little Tyna peaked from behind Säsey's legs, thumb in mouth. She had her mother's exotic yellow eyes and long, delicate fingers, but Zho had always been disappointed with her sky blue skin. He would have preferred that she look even more like her mother, so she would have all the opportunities of a true greenskin.
"It's late. I thought you would be abed already!" Zho reached for Tyna, boosted her up onto his shoulders, where she squealed with delight. He was old, but not too old.
"There was not enough nävey in the knot for all the pups, so we volunteered to walk for ours tonight, didn't we Tyna?"
"I wanted to hear The Story," Tyna whined from her father's shoulders.
Normally, that would have concerned Zho. History should not be taken lightly - Tyna should hear The Story every night with the rest of janta. But he lingered on Säsey's words, ignoring his daughter's frustrated sigh. "Not enough for the pups, even? But the clanleaders - we've been careful - "
Säsey shook her head. "I helped Jora carry the last of them out this evening to feed. But that's not the worst, Zho! Tonight a blue woman climbed up from seven levels below, begging for nävey - begging! She was thin as a chord vine from lack of nourishment, almost collapsed right at our feet. Jora and I tried to get her to the nävey right away, but she resisted. She wanted us to let her lower a metik basket and bring up her pups." Säsey's voice shook.
"What did you do?" Zho asked. He leaned closer to Säsey and patted her hand in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. In truth, he had never had to comfort Säsey before and was not sure he knew how.
"They told her no," Tyna reported in a lisp when her mother hesitated. "If we have to take our own pups outside the knot to feed, how can we feed the pups from another level?"
"It's true!" Säsey's voice defied Zho to challenge her. "The nävey is receding everywhere. What if the knot goes dry? What if the entire level goes dry?"
Anxiety shrunk her capillaries, causing the remaining nävey to bead on her skin. Säsey was far too thin already; she could not afford to waste even a drop of nävey.
"Be calm, Säsey. Our knot has never gone dry, and therefore Drazjanta has never gone dry," he said. Surely, if the nävey had gone dry, Davey would have told the story once during Zho's three centuries. Wouldn't he?
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure." He tried to sound certain, but his heart pounded with fear. Even he had not heard the whole history of the Manjyans and the Tree. Only the storyteller, the eldest among them, could be sure. "You'll see. The nävey will return, and those who climb up will return to their own jantas."
"Husband, I know you don't want me to worry, but I have to hear this from Davey himself."
Säsey took his hand, and they walked back to the knot together. He should have tried to find somewhere to feed - his weak knees almost caused him to stumble - but instead he slept while he waited to hear from Davey.
***
Seven more blue women climbed up to Drazjanta in the morning, some from as far as thirty levels below. All carried pups in metik nets on their backs, and the last nearly slipped back into the abyss as she struggled to hoist herself up with twins. Zho jerked away from her reaching hand, but Tegel pulled her up, where she collapsed in a pile with her blue sisters. Zho stood a little behind the rest of the Manjyans who had gathered around the invaders, trying to be invisible and wishing Davey would arrive.
"Nävey, please." It was little more than a gasp from the lips of the blue woman carrying twins, probably the senior clanmother. They looked like a cluster of spiny bark beetles, all hunched over with little lumps on their backs. Dark eyes peered out of narrow midnight faces; these ones must be from many levels below. Zho felt the eyes of the other clanleaders on him and swallowed. Where was Davey?
"Zho, you must speak for us," Tegel whispered, and Zho felt his friend's hand on his arm. "Davey is at meditation."
Zho opened his mouth, and Säsey's own words came to his mind. "You must climb higher, friends, to where the sun shines all day. We don't have enough nävey to feed our own pups, and we cannot spare the nävey for yours."
Judging by the lack of green in their skin, they would find little nourishment in the sun on the levels above, but their capillaries were so shrunken he doubted any of them could be saved with nävey anyway. It would be a waste to give them nävey when healthy pups could be saved. He looked up into Tegel's shocked eyes.
"I am called Tegel, third eldest," his friend said to the blue woman with twins. "If you're seeking a new clan, you'll find shelter in my knot. Your pups will become my pups."
As the other blue women were invited, one by one, to join Drazjanta with other clanleaders, Zho's anxiety grew, until he stalked away from the group. Seven clanmothers and eight pups! Fifteen new mouths to feed. Even if the nävey returned, it could not return soon enough for them to be able to feed all of the blue women who might seek shelter.
But despite his certainty that he had done the right thing, his own words to Säsey haunted him, as did Tegel's face. His young brother had taken three strangers into his knot, feeding them nävey meant for his own pups! Zho had spoken for the janta, but six clanleaders had followed Tegel.
"I did not mean to shame you, friend. But I could not turn them away. They are our sisters."
Zho turned to see Tegel following, his new wife stumbling in his wake.
"You could have told them to climb. There is sunlight at the top. It is free and plentiful," he said, giving Tegel a hard look. "They climb or we climb, and this is our home. When your own pups starve, when your clanwives leave you for the green men above, you will regret this."
He walked away and did not look back. There were no moral choices in survival; he would do whatever it took to save his janta, if it meant sending Tegel's blue woman into the abyss himself.
***
The blue women and their pups were absent from The Story that night, but Zho stood aside listening the hiss of the gossiping crowd. To his left, the clanmothers frowned and crossed their arms; to his right, the few clanleaders who had just adopted blue women shifted uneasily. Sandwiched in between, the rest of the clanleaders cast wary glances between their wives and their brothers. Pups of all ages clung to their mothers or linked arms with their best friends and eavesdropped on adult conversations.
When Davey finally emerged from his knot and raised his arms, Zho almost sighed with relief. The storyteller would set things straight and send the blue women climbing with their mangy pups. The janta could not support fifteen new mouths.
Silence enveloped the gathering.
"Tonight is 'The Story of Aaah!'" Davey lowered his arms.
Zho knelt with the rest of the crowd, except for a conspicuous few, who stood looking at each other in confusion. Zho, too, had expected a different story, something more pertinent to their current situation, but he would not disrespect Davey. The storyteller did not resume until the remaining Manjyans had knelt.
"The Manjyan people did not always have a voice, though they always had ears to hear." Davey's rich voice carried all the way to Zho in the back of the crowd. "There was a time, many centuries ago, when the wind cried 'whoooooo,' and our people were silent. The salbirds screamed 'whit-whit! wha-whit!' but our people did not respond. The crickets chirruped us to sleep, and we listened in bliss. The clanmothers did not sing to their pups. The pups did not laugh at the flitting butterflies. The clanleaders did not count their metik threads aloud as they wove.
"There was a time when The Story was not told."
Zho sat up straight. This was a new story, one that even he had never heard. Of course a people without a voice could not tell The Story. But then how did they learn about their history? In tones rising and falling, voices gritty and wailing, Davey described how Patra the Eldest watched the sun set Beyond every night surrounded by his pups, their mouths open in silent awe.
"But one night, as the last purple rays dissolved, a star fell from the top of the world and shattered over the Manjya Tree, showering the world with sparkling bits of itself, and Patra opened his mouth, and a sound came out: Aaaaaaaaaaah!" Davey said this last with his head thrown back and mouth opened wide. "His youngest pups were so startled that they ran for their mother, while the older ones stood staring. Their father had made a sound, and a sound like none they had ever heard before. That night, the entire janta learned to say 'Aaaaah!' And the Manjya were silent no more."
It was the first story, Zho realized. Davey had just told them about the tradition of The Story. But why - but why had he never told this story before? This was perhaps the most important of any Zho had ever heard, the tale of the beginning of their history. He had heard a thousand anecdotes about the life of Patra, and in none of them had Patra ever been mute! Zho looked around, but everyone else seemed as confused as him.
"But what does it mean?" Someone cried. "Why have you told us this?"
Davey nodded to Zho. The Story was about learning, but the storyteller was not the only teacher. Zho's face burned, but he had no insight. Tegel and Wealan also offered no response. Davey shook his head sadly and retired into his knot. The janta would be expected to reflect, perhaps for many moons of time, before the topic surfaced again.
The rest of the crowd dispersed, clearly dissatisfied with tonight's story and the lack of discussion, but Zho chanced a visit to Davey's knot, hoping the eldest was feeling patient. Turmoil twisted Zho's heart in his chest; he needed counsel.
"Zho, please sit. I knew you would come to me tonight. Did you enjoy the story?" Davey smiled and waved a welcoming hand toward some finely woven metik cushions spread on the floor.
"I admit, I didn't understand it," Zho said. "And I expected something... different."
"Different how?"
"Something to help us through the crisis. The nävey is receding, and strangers invade our janta to steal what little remains. Please tell us what to do."
Davey patted Zho's hand. "Friend, I do not know what to do."
"But there must be stories about the nävey! You must be able to tell us something!"
"There are many stories about the nävey, but you should be able to tell them yourself by now. You have heard them all many times." Davey smiled.
Zho opened his mouth to protest that it wasn't possible -- Davey was the keeper of the histories. Then he remembered 'The Story of Aaah,' the first story of the Manjyans, and he understood. If the nävey had ever receded before, it must have happened before Patra learned to speak, before the birth of their history. How ancient was this piece of history and how long since the last time it had happened? Zho was not accustomed to such uncertainty.
***
Tears formed in the corners of Säsey's eyes later when Zho told her the significance of tonight's story.
"But you said the knot had never gone dry, that Drazjanta had never gone dry. You said Davey would tell us." Her voice was ragged and desperate.
"That's what I believed. Davey is the keeper of our histories. I thought he would know, but he doesn't."
Zho shrank from Säsey's tears and walked to the end of the avenue, so far out that he was balancing on the tips of thin branches and in danger of falling into the abyss. Circling the trunk, he walked each avenue on Drazjanta. The bark was healthy, the leaves were thick and green, but the nävey was thin everywhere. On some avenues there was none at all.
"We could climb," Tegel said.
Zho jumped. "I did not see you there, old friend." They embraced; Zho could never stay angry with his brother for long. "Yes, we could climb, but if the nävey is drying up below and it's drying up here, then surely it's also drying above us in the levels where it was thinner to begin with."
"There is always the sun, as you said," Tegel said. "Drazjanta could survive on sunlight alone."
"But would the janta above accept us? We may be able to survive on sunlight, but even two levels above, their skin is so much greener. We would be outcasts! How long would we be forced to live with them? And how many of us would they take, assuming we survived the climb? There is no shelter at the top, Davey says. Is there room for so many in their limited knots to protect us from the wicked storms? Survival is not life," Zho said.
"No, survival is not life," Tegel agreed. "But it is an option."
Eventually, the blue men and women from the lower jantas bypassed Drazjanta without stopping. Then one day someone came back down. She was angry and sobbing, so weak she could barely curl her fingers to find handholds.
"They threw them down! They threw my pups down," she wailed. "They said if I come back they'll throw me down, too."
And she collapsed boneless on the avenue. As always, the other Manjyans looked to Zho for a response. Zho began to take a step back, and the others followed his lead. But then she looked up at him, and he realized her skin was precisely the same shade of blue as Tyna's.
"I am Zho, second eldest," he heard himself say, as he reached down a hand to draw her to her feet. "If you're seeking a new clan, you'll find shelter in my knot. Together we will mourn the loss of our pups."
***
Eighteen suns after the first blue woman had come begging, the nävey ran dry. Not a strand of it was to be found anywhere on Drazjanta, and Zho believed that if they were to search every level of the Manjya Tree, they would not find nävey. The woman he had taken into his knot died in just a few days.
The clanwives began taking the pups to the ends of the avenues to absorb as much sun as possible, but the tips were thin and shaky and the pups were still bone-thin after a full day in the sun. Too much weight would send them plummeting to their deaths, so Zho sat with the other clanleaders as near the knot entrances until sunset and helped to carry the pups back in out of the cold night air.
Finally, Zho felt too old.
Many nights weakness consumed him, and he watched through slitted eyes as a younger brother carried his pups - and sometimes his wives - back into the knot. It was too late now for any of them to seek their fortunes at the top. Zho floated in and out of awareness, unable to talk and hardly forming a coherent thought. During one of his lucid moments, he realized that he could see the sunlight shining in the door, yet Säsey was still flat on her back beside him. He raised his head enough to see the bodies of the other clanwives and pups scattered around the knot like so many piles of skin and bones.
Zho curled around Säsey's body and fell back into oblivion.
***
The next time Zho opened his eyes, his cheek seemed to be resting in a deliciously warm pool of nävey.
"But the nävey has dried up," he thought.
For hours or days he drifted along in an impossibly beautiful dream where the pups wailed again and a cluster of beetles chattered on the ceiling of the knot. One time when he opened his eyes, a thick orange strand wove its way down from the ceiling and pooled on the floor beside him.
"It's a dream," he thought, "or else I'm delirious with starvation. It looks like nävey, but it's only dirt. I will use the last of my strength to spread it on my skin, and then I will die."
But the hallucination had gripped him. As he dragged his fingers down his cheek, spreading what he was certain was dirt, he realized that it truly was nävey. Raising himself to one elbow, he saw that some of the pups rested in pools of the nutrient. Their chests raised and lowered, but otherwise they did not move. Zho used his little strength to pull the rest of the pups into the orange fluid. Unable to move the clanwives, he scooped nävey in his hands and crawled to them, spreading it on their foreheads, willing them to live. Their breathing was slow, so slow, and they were thin as the tips of the avenues, but perhaps this little would sustain them.
Exhaustion finally overwhelmed him, and he collapsed back into sleep.
When he awoke again, the knot was empty, and sunlight flooded through the doorway. The nävey hung in full webs now, thick and complex as he had ever seen it. He eased to his feet and shuffled to the door, staggering back when Tegel put his head in.
"You're awake! Good!" Tegel embraced him.
"Sasey--the pups--"
"Your clan is well." Tegel's face sobered. "But let's sit in the sun for a few moments and relax. There are things we must discuss."
Zho blinked hard as he stepped out onto the avenue. Again, he thought he must be hallucinating; at the base of each branch was a cluster of round, white objects.
"Aren't they beautiful?" Tegel said. "They're everywhere. The beetles are nesting inside them. And there is a new creature that visits them, stopping at each one."
"But what are they?" Zho stretched up to one. It was soft and smelled nice.
"Säsey calls them 'blossom'."
"Like the ones she brought with her when she came to us? But hers are hard and brightly colored, like the feathers of the birds. These are soft and have no color."
Tegel shrugged. "Your clanwife is a wise woman. Besides, if they have never been told in The Story, what does it matter how we name them?"
"You're right. We should ask Davey what he thinks."
Tegel's face fell. "Davey... Davey has gone to the abyss."
Zho stumbled to his knees. His chest felt suddenly heavy; he struggled to draw a breath. Davey had been the eldest for so long, nearly two centuries! Davey had held his hand through illness, had welcomed Säsey with him. Davey was the storyteller.
"How?"
"He starved, Zho. Davey was nearly twice your age, and look how long it took you to become well after the nävey left. His body couldn't take the strain." Tegel sat beside him and put an arm around Zho. "He asked me to give you a message."
I'm eldest now, Zho thought. So old. It's my turn next to go to the abyss.
"It is your turn to tell The Story," Tegel said.
"What?"
"It is your turn to carry The Story to the clans."
Of course it was his turn; the storyteller was always the eldest. He just hadn't ever thought he would be eldest. Zho looked at the bark of the avenue. "There is more wisdom and knowledge in this tree than I can ever hope to offer my brothers and sisters."
Tegel frowned. "Of course there is. How could there not be? The Manjya Tree is centuries older than any individual Manjyan. But the tree does not speak, and among us you are the eldest. Each of us is a keeps part of The Story in us, but you keep more than anyone."
"I am bad at making decisions. How many of our sisters and their pups died because of my stubbornness?"
"Zho, none of the Manjyans from below survived, not even the very young. The parents were overstrained from their climb, and the pups received virtually no nutrition from the sunlight. Even many of our own pups from the south side of the tree died."
"I'm sorry about your new wife." Zho took Tegel's hand.
Tegel shook his head. "There was nothing any of us could have done. I took her in out of compassion, without thinking of the consequences. A good leader does not save or condemn by his decisions, he reveals truth. And even truth is not the same for each individual."
Zho laughed. "You should have been the eldest! You're a natural leader and a wiser Manjyan than me. As it is, I'll have to keep you at my side at all times, in case someone comes to me with a question I can't answer."
"I'll live long enough to tell your story. That's soon enough for me." Tegel smiled. "Well, you'd better start thinking of your first lesson. The clans won't give you much of a reprieve."
"Let's walk," Zho said. "I want to see more of this new blossom. What are the creatures that visit it?" He wanted to see more life and less death.
"They've not been named. Everyone is waiting for the storyteller to give us a name. But be careful," he warned, as Zho reached out a hand to touch one of the new creatures, "they don't like to be disturbed. They'll attack you."
"This creature's story has never been told," Zho said.
Another first story. How had Davey remembered them all? How had he remembered which ones he had already told? Zho was sure many must have been lost that Davey had not had time to tell. His own inadequacy overwhelmed him, and he did not see Regga, Tegel's oldest, standing on the avenue until he had almost knocked the boy down.
"Excuse me, eldest, my apologies." Regga turned his face down and rubbed his hands down his cheeks in the sign of humility.
"It was my fault, Regga. No apology needed," Zho said. Regga stepped aside, but did not move until Tegel and Zho were well away. "Your son is acting strangely, Tegel."
Tegel frowned. "What do you mean? He has always shown respect for you. Things are not so different today than they were yesterday, Zho."
"I am different," Zho said.
"But to everyone else you have always been second eldest. You've always had our respect. Most Manjyans are so young that the step from second eldest to eldest seems small."
Zho spent the day studying the new life in the Manjya Tree. It turned out there was more than one new creature inhabiting the blossom. An entire system of interconnected lives had grown up around the blossoms, with new spiders, flying and crawling insects, and even a type of fungus that only grew under the leaves on the south side of the tree.
Finally he understood why Davey had spent so much time just staring at the tree, observing and absorbing its knowledge. Here were hundreds of new stories to be told, weeks of history being made right in front of his eyes! He imagined himself telling each one, pictured the hand gestures he would use, the facial expressions and tones of voice that would convey what plain words could not.
I can do this. I can be the voice of the Manjyan memory, he thought.
When he lifted his arms that evening to begin his first story, he chose the most important history of all.
"Tonight is the story of 'Life and Death and Life'," Zho said. The Story must never end with death, he thought.
He lowered his arms, and the Manjyans knelt for their lesson.
Chris Africa is a veteran writer and editor, with eight years' experience in Web site development. In November 2003, she founded Ultraverse e-zine of science fiction and fantasy. For more information about Chris Africa, browse her personal web site, Parola Scritta. Feel free to contact her at either of her e-mail addresses: baiewola@yahoo.com or editor@ultraverse.us
© Chris Africa
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