Red Ramblings : June 2012

I was going through the files of an old hard drive and discovered this fragment of a story. It takes place in the Oldest Living Vampire world, and features Nyala and Eyya, Gon's wives, long after their husband had been made into an immortal. Maybe I'll finish this one day. What do you think?

Nyala’s Tale

Rod Redux

When she was younger and of child-bearing age, the people of her tribe called her Nyala.

She lived in the verdant river valley of a piney mountainous region that is now called the Swabian Alps, in a country that would come to be named Germany in some thirty thousand years. In her youth, she had two husbands, one named Gon and the other named Brulde. She also had a subordinate Neanderthal wife named Eyya. They lived contentedly in a dome-shaped hut called a wetus, and their successful group marriage—which was a common way to live in her culture-- produced six beautiful children, three of which she had delivered from her own body.

But her child-bearing days were long past. Her youth, like her womb, had wizened with the passing of the seasons, shriveling like a bunyun fruit that had been left too long in the sun.

“Nyala”, in the tongue of the River People, meant “a blooming flower”, a name her father gave her when she was born, never considering that someday that flower would go to seed. As age seamed her face, as the unrelenting march of the sun and moon across the sky bleached her blonde hair white and hunched her back, the People took to calling her Nyal, which meant simply “a plant”, but the connotation of the word was a little bit worse. It really meant “a useless old weed”, but that suited her. That suited her just fine.

This Paleolithic crone, now named Nyal, was by our standard of measuring time, only 59 years old, but that was ancient in those untamed days. She and her subordinate wife Eyya, a Neanderthal, had been living in the Siede for years, old widow women.

The Siede was the communal cave of the elders, where the River People retired to while away their twilight years, performing menial tasks and teaching the young ones the skills they would need to survive while their parents were off hunting and gathering.

It was just the two of them now.

Brulde was dead, and Gon… Gon had vanished many years before, when they were all still young and had a hut full of babies. Nyal and Eyya subsisted on the generosity of their four strapping sons now, and traded their skills at threadwork and weaving for the rest of the commodities they needed to live.

“At least we’re comfortable,” Eyya would say, sitting beside the fire.

Comfortable is a matter of opinion, Nyal thought to herself, shifting around irritably on a pile of woven reed mats and old furs. Either her bedding was getting thinner, or her butt was getting bonier!

“At least our children still visit us,” Eyya sometimes said also.

Well, Den was always busy, chasing after women who were far too young for him, but Hun and Gan and Gavid always brought a portion of their hunting to their mothers’ apartment in the Seide, and Lethe and Breyya visited from time to time to gossip round the fire.

Eyya was an incurably optimistic woman.

It irritated Nyala to no end.

“It’s a miracle that all our children live,” Eyya often observed after their female children had visited. “Vestra has truly blessed us, Nyala.”

“Is that right?” Nyal replied tactfully.

Vestra was the moon goddess of the Neanderthal people. The River People had no gods—no gods save one. If that is what you wanted to call a “god”, thought Nyal with bitter amusement. But she loved old Eyya, fat and ugly as she’d become, so she smiled and nodded and agreed with her. Nyal wasn’t inclined to be so satisfied, but Eyya’s feelings were easily bruised, and Nyal hated to see that look of shock and hurt flash in her Neanderthal companion’s eyes. It made the old woman feel terribly guilty.

“I suppose that’s true, my love,” Nyala said, adjusting a pair of breeches in her lap. She wriggled her bone needle through the tough material and pulled the flaxen thread taut. One of the young men in the tribe, whose wife had no skills at sewing, had promised her a fat haunch of deer meat in return for a new pair of pants.

As she sewed, Nyal pretended she did not notice how thin and wrinkled the flesh of her hands had become. When did her hands become an old crone’s crinkled claws? she wondered, turning them this way and that in the flickering firelight.

Eyya often smiled like she was doing right this moment, looking at the ceiling with a dreamy expression-- counting all her blessings, Nyal supposed with an exasperated shake of her head.

Ancestors love her!

She wished her heart could be so simple… so easily satisfied.

Eyya died at the wet end of winter, after slipping in some slushy snow.

She had tottered from the cave early one morning, headed for the ditch at the edge of camp where their people went to shit and piss. Nyal told her to wait, told her she would help her walk to the ditch in just a moment, just let her get her shoes on and work the kinks out of her legs and back, but Eyya couldn’t hold her water – she could never hold her water anymore-- so Nyala’s companion ventured out alone.

Cursing under her breath, Nyala slipped her wrinkled old crone’s feet into her leather shoes. She pulled on the gut string laces its seams were bound together with to snug them tighter to her feet, then leaned her elbow against an outcrop of stone to lever herself up.

She winced at the pain that seized her back. It felt like some devil beast had sank merciless hooked claws into the meat of her and pulled in both directions. When she’d gotten her balance, standing hunched with one hand on the wall, she pushed away and tottered off after her Neanderthal companion.

The Siede was divided into living quarters with hanging hides, which were draped or suspended from rickety frames of wood bound together with gut string or braided rope made of plant material. Nyala’s apartment was near the entrance of the cave, which was good for a peepee bunny like Eyya, but not so good for an old arthritic like Nyala. It took her several minutes every morning just to work her swollen joints loose, and on cold moist days, her body howled in agony at the chore. If not for the framash, which she drank regularly, she thought she might wander off into the woods to die, the pain could get so bad.

Nyal pushed through the hide dividing her quarters from the rest of the elder commune and began to shuffle her way toward the opening of the cave. Through the gaps in the other hangings, she caught little glimpses of her fellow residents: her fat brother-in-marriage Epp’ha, snoring in his bedding, tiny Herma and her blind husband, the sisters Deb and Neba, smoking merje beside the low licking flames of their fire. She saw nasty old Y’ppham, assaulting the wrinkled remains of his manhood, and averted her eyes with a disgusted snort.

Do they never tire of their little toy?

Even on the best of days, the Siede smelled of smoke and aged flesh, stale farts and urine-stained bedding.

Nyala’s lips thinned as she leaned into the frigid wind that was whistling through the outer wall. The entrance of the cave was blocked off with hides, too, but the stout late winter wind had found a hundred gaps through which to pry its icy fingers. The chill currents blew through her thin white hair, made her knees and shoulders throb.

She was reaching out to catch the flapping entrance when she heard an outcry rise up from the camp beyond.

It seemed she already knew, even before tottering outside, what had happened.

With a coldness in her heart that she could not attribute to the wind, she pushed her way outside. The sun was bright despite the cold, and glared off drifts of new fallen snow. The white humps of snowfall sparkled in a very lovely manner, but the glare was still painful for rheumy old eyes adjusted to the dimness of the Siede. Squinting into the white light, she watched as several of the younger People went running toward the ditch on the far side of the camp, calling to one another and making sounds of surprise and concern.

She followed after them, her lips pressing tighter and tighter together. The wind blew spicules of ice into her face. Icicles dripped from the bare limbs of the trees.

She hoped her premonition was wrong, but before she’s even made it halfway across the camp, several men came stumbling her direction, Eyya cradled in their arms.

“You foolish old Fat Hand!” Nyala cried as the men carried her companion toward her.

Eyya was groaning, the right side of her body wet and slick with mud.

“She fell down, Grandmother,” one of the men said, a tall, powerful looking hunter in fur trimmed clothes. He had wiry black hair and a full beard. The man was not her grandson. “Grandmother” was just a title of respect. The young ones called all the elders Grandmother or Grandfather. “I was shitting when she came to the ditch to empty her bladder,” he explained. “I asked her if she needed help, but she said she was fine. I… I guess she slipped. I was looking away to give her some privacy. She must have fallen in the ditch when she squatted and couldn’t get back on her feet.”

The trough where the People went to eliminate their waste, out on the eastern side of the camp near the tannery, was several feet deep, a sizeable fall for an old woman.

It wasn’t mud all over her then…

Nyal curled her upper lip and waved at the foul smell coming from her companion. “Why couldn’t you have waited a moment longer?” she asked Eyya querulously. “I said I was getting up!”

“I’m sorry, Nyala,” Eyya moaned. She gasped and clutched her hip. “Oh, that hurts!”

Her heart aching, Nyala stepped aside and motioned the men past. “Take her to our quarters in the Siede. I will look after the foolish old thing!” She followed, daubing at her eyes. That wind--!

There was nothing that could be done for her. The other elders gathered and helped Nyala to bathe the woman and make her comfortable. They gave Eyya framash to sooth her pain, and bundled her up for warmth. Most of their children came to see her in the days that followed, but the Neanderthal woman grew weaker and more feverish by the hour.

The nights were long and terrible. Eyya could do naught but shiver and cry out when she tried to move. Nyala did not leave her side, and cleaned up her companion when Eyya soiled herself like a baby. She did it grimly, but without complaint. When Eyya apologized, crying softly, Nyal shushed her brusquely. She couldn’t bring herself to speak out loud what she felt in her heart. As unpleasant as it was to clean her, Nyal loved the old Neanderthal woman, and felt it an honor to tend to her in her last days. Finally, about a week after falling and breaking her pelvis, Eyya passed into the Ghost World.

Nyala knew it was coming. Her companion was pale and weak. Eyya lay shivering by their fire, even though the Siede was stifling hot. She had laid unconscious most of the day, and when she did wake, her eyes were filmy and rolled in their sockets as if she couldn’t quite remember where she was. Nyala went to lie next to her, and she petted the fat old Neanderthal’s hand.

“It’s all right. I’m here.”

“Nyala?” Eyya murmured.

“Yes?”

“We’ve led a good life.”

“I know we have.”

“Do you remember how handsome and strong our husbands were when we were young?”

“Yes.”

Eyya laughed softly. “They pursued me so insistently! My father didn’t know what to make of them. You know, the Gray Stone People do not live in group families like your people do. It was a bit of a scandal when I left home to marry two Fast Feet men, but I loved Gon so much, and Brulde was a very sweet man, too. So calm and thoughtful. Brulde was very much like my own people in that regard.”

Nyala shifted uncomfortably. She did not like to reflect on the past so much. It made her feel weepy. “You need to rest, dear one. How will you ever get better if you don’t rest?”

Eyya’s deep brown eyes rolled toward Nyala. They seemed very clear all of a sudden. Her lucid gazed chilled Nyala to the bone. She knew what it meant.

Eyya smiled and said, “I won’t be getting better, my love. I’m go tonight to dwell with Vestra. I’m ready to return to the Mother of All. I’m tired of living here on Doomhalde’s back, but I will miss you. I only hope to see my family there. All the ones the Demon Ghost killed all those ages ago. And Brulde, too. I hope I see him in the spirit world. Perhaps they’re one and the same, your spirit world and the realm of the sky goddess?”

Nyala shushed her, bringing the woman’s feverish hand to her lips and kissing it. “Perhaps,” she said solemnly.

Eyya’s eyes waxed distant. As she faded, she asked one last question: “Do you think our husband will come down from the mountain to claim me, Nyala?” She drew a whispery breath, more of a rattle, really. “I hope so,” the Neanderthal sighed, so soft Nyala could barely hear her. “I want my bones to reside with our husbands.”

And then she was gone.

When Nyala was a blushing newlywed, a demon ghost invaded their peaceful valley home. It had stalked and killed the Gray Stone People, the tribe her subordinate wife had come from. When Nyala’s people sent a war party to aid their neighboring clan, only two men from the tribe returned.

Nyala supposed she and Eyya were lucky. Both of their husbands had gone to aid their neighboring allies. One, at least, had lived to return to them. Brulde had returned, crippled and full of fearsome tales, speaking of not one but two demons, and how those demons had killed all of their war party.

Gon, Nyala and Eyya’s other husband, did not come home.

Gon and Brulde had escaped after killing the little demon, Brulde told them, but then the master demon had come and snatched Gon in the dark.

Several of the People had vanished in the night while the war party was away. Their bodies were never recovered. A couple of their tribesmen described the monster that had preyed upon them: that it was pale, with eyes like the embers of a fire, and that it flew through the trees on great black wings, moving faster than any mortal man could move. Mad as his tales were, Brulde was believed by all, and it was verified a day later when one more survivor straggled in, Brulde’s uncle Kort-lenthe.

The People waited for the demon to return, debating in the Siede whether they should flee the valley like their Neanderthal neighbors had done, but when no more people were stolen in the night, they began to think that the demon ghost had moved on, and they got back to their daily lives, mourning for those that were lost, yes, but a body had to eat, and there were babies to take care of.

A few seasons went by, and life returned to normal. No more People were snatched from their tents in the middle of the night. Brulde recovered, and grew strong enough to provide for his family once more—with the help of their eldest sons, of course.

And then one day in the fall, many seasons later, Brulde came limping back to camp, overwrought and shouting the news that Gon still lived. Their two sons who were hunting with him were just as shocked and overwhelmed. Gon lives! Their father lives!

They explained to all who cared to hear their tale how Gon had dispatched the demon ghost who’d killed the Neanderthals so long before. “The demon ghost cursed him,” Brulde gasped breathlessly. “That is why he could not return to us. He has been made a thing of ice and spirit. I saw him, Nyala! It is like he is frozen. He hasn’t aged a day! And after we spoke, he melted away like smoke. He just vanished. But he is real. I touched him.”

If her sons Gan and Hun had not sworn it was true, Nyala wouldn’t have believed it. Demons and magic were the playthings of Neanderthal imaginations, not the People.

Then, when Brulde died of the coughing illness a few winters later, Nyala saw her long lost husband with her own two eyes.

Brulde had spoken the truth. Gon drifted like a spirit from the treetops, white, gleaming, as young as the day he left her side to do battle the monster who was killing the Fat Hands. They were carrying Brulde’s body to their ancestral burial mound, but at Gon’s request, their sons put the body of Nyala’s dead husband at the feet of the white, ageless thing that looked like her young husband. He spoke to Nyala and Eyya both, his voice like the voice she heard in her sweetest dreams, and then he lifted Brulde into his arms and flew away with him, leaving behind a promise to return for them both, when the last of their days were done.

Eyya wondered aloud if Gon would indeed return for her when she died, and of course he did.

How he knew that Eyya had passed into the Ghost World, Nyala could not fathom. Perhaps he watched over them, as the People had come to believe. Perhaps it was simply a part of the magic which preserved him throughout time. However he knew, he came. As they bore Eyya’s body down to the burial mound in the forest just across the river, the winds came up, twisting and whipping like an angry serpent, and he swept down through the sudden flurry of ice to claim his bride.