Chapter Ten

"What is she"? Kren asked of his mog-ur for seemingly the hundredth time over the past week. The strange black woman who had appeared from nowhere was a mystery. No one from Kren's large clan had ever seen such a dark-skinned person before, and they were disturbed, and a little frightened, by the black being in their midst. Their mog-ur, Dren, had forbidden anyone, including Kren, to harm the woman until he had meditated upon the matter. When Kren asked him why, Dren replied, "Kren, what if she is some sort of spirit in human form? What if she is powerful? What might happen to us if we harm or kill her and then her spirit is unleashed?" Kren replied, "Let's just make her leave then. If we can't kill her, or curse her with death, let's just take her back to the beach where she was found and let her go." "She knows where our cave is now, Kren - - what if she returns here in anger?" Dren asked, genuinely fearful of the dark woman. She seemed entirely unable to communicate, alternating between silence, long streams of jabbering sounds, and wailing and crying. Dren had ordered his medicine woman Sheba to spend time with the dark creature and learn whatever she could about her, but had reported little progress. "She just sits there making her strange sounds with water pouring out of her eyes, Dren", Sheba reported. "She sometimes looks at me and tries to put her arms around me, and sometimes she reaches out for one of our babies or young children, but they fear her and run away, and then she wails and waters even more."

For her part, Ranawa was rapidly losing interest in living. None of the hairy people seemed to speak at all, instead just waving their hands and arms at each other. And although one of the women, whose name she finally gathered was a guttural form of "Shee-bah" had approached her on multiple occasions seeming to want to communicate, she had backed away when Ranawa tried to hug her in misery. No amount of explaining seemed to make any of these strange people understand that she was miserable, and had lost her husband and child, and wanted nothing more than to continue her search to either find them or find a way back home. She caught the dark looks from the two men who seemed to spend the most time observing her, and the fearful looks from the women and children. She became convinced that she would eventually be killed, or worse. One day, she finally decided to dance her tribe's death dance, the way that her people said goodbye to the memory of the occasional man, woman, and even children who simply disappeared from time to time in the jungles of her homeland. Between hostile other tribes, animal predators, and the occasional fatal accident while out traveling or exploring, people just sometimes disappeared and never returned, their bodies never found. Ranawa decided that the time had come to say goodbye to Wymez and Ranec, and, in a greater sense, to say goodbye to all of her own people, whom she was becoming increasingly convinced that she would never see again. That death dance changed her life forever.

As she arose she became the immediate object of attention by all of the Clan people in the cave, including Kren and Dren. As Ranawa started her dancing, full of flowing arm and hand movements, she seemed to stare up towards the roof of the cave, and through it. Her dance captivated the watching Clan. Although her gestures meant nothing specific to them, they were used to reading bodily postures and facial expressions, and she seemed, to them, to be speaking to the spirits in some unknown, esoteric language. Kren became alarmed as Ranawa's dance began to accelerate. She danced with greater abandon and began making a high, wordless, ululating and keening cry to give voice to her grief, both for herself and for her lost husband and child. As she gave way fully to her grief, her dancing became more violent, her hair being tossed in all directions as she bent at the waist and rotated her hips. Her arm movements became wilder as she circled in place, kicking out her legs at seemingly random intervals. Her cries built to screams that reverberated throughout the cave. "What is she doing?" Kren demanded of Dren. Dren was transfixed by the sight of the black woman who had apparently gone berserk, except for the fact that her dance so clearly had some great purpose. Her eyes were wide open, which made a frightening contrast to her dark, contorted face. His earlier belief that she might be some kind of dark, powerful spirit returned to his thoughts fourfold. Just as that thought crystalized in his mind, a tremendous clap of thunder from a storm that had suddenly blown up outside the cave while they were all watching Ranawa's dance reverberated inside the cave.

"She's the incarnation of one of the ancient, dark spirits of wind, mist and rain!" Dren suddenly gestured, convinced that the thunder signaled this strange creatures powers over the elements. "She's a night spirit, powerful and possibly evil" he continued, and his gestures showed his fright. The other people in his cave, including even their leader Kren, suddenly shared his fear. "What should we do?" Kren practically shouted with his gestures when another clap of thunder sounded. Everybody inside the cave could also hear the winds rising outside. "Everybody sit down and remain silent," Dren said, trying to think of a way to let this dancing dervish know that he now knew who she was and that no one would harm her. Indeed, Dren thought that his clan should perhaps even begin to worship this woman who had suddenly appeared in their midst out of the most ancient Clan legends. A time in a past so distant that women could be possessed by powerful, dark spirits and thereby become a powerful sorceress, a mog-ur…even a leader of a cave! How could he tell her that she could stop raising up the thunderstorm that now raged outside their cave. Dren, as well as that of the other men, women and children inside the cave, were now convinced that the strong storm was under command of the dancing woman, and that she could, if she wanted to, bring it right inside their cave. They all looked to their mog-ur for guidance and for him to bring help from their protective Clan spirits.

Dren, at a gestured command from Kren, approached the now tiring dark woman. Each and every member of the cave was stunned when their mog-ur suddenly dropped down to a kneeling posture before the dancing woman - - he was adopting the posture of a woman who was asking for permission to speak to a man! Every line of the mog-ur's face, and every angle of his submissively postured body, spoke clearly to the people of his intense fear of this dark creature, who slowed, and then stopped her dance to look down upon the crouching mog-ur before her. In her state of tired confusion after her exhausting dance of death, she staggered forward just enough to brush the shoulder of the man kneeling before her. Dren took that touch as permission to speak, looked up into her dark visage and began to make the supplicating gestures he hoped would mollify this dark spirit's anger. His gestures told his watching clan that he now knew she was one of the Clan's most ancient spirits come back to life, and that she had nothing to fear from them; they would revere her and care for her as one of their own. And in his most supplicating gestures, the mog-ur humbly and meekly asked this woman to make the storm outside go away.

Ranawa had no idea what the man kneeling before her was saying, but she gathered that he seemed to be genuinely afraid of her. Then she looked around and saw that all of the other strange hairy people were sitting down with their eyes averted away from her. She had no idea what had caused this sudden turn of events, but she suddenly thought that perhaps she could use it as an opportunity to escape her captivity. These people had been kind to her; had fed her, given her furs to wear, and a place near a fire, but she wanted to leave and continue her search. She walked slowly towards the entrance to the cave, waiting any moment for someone to rise up and seize her, but they remained seated. When she reached the cave's entrance and pulled the hide aside, she looked out onto the ragged remnants of the thunderstorm that had blown up and over them all. She stood at the entrance watching the sky as the line of clouds that had held the storms moved overhead, to continue their stormy path to the east. As the clouds thinned out towards the west, a shaft of the setting sun poked through and lit the cave's entrance as she stood in it, illuminating her as if Ursus himself had painted her with golden light.

After that day, two things happened. First, the Clan still refused to allow her to depart. Dren was convinced that it was far too dangerous to allow such a powerful spirit to simply wander off. Two, Ranawa was now treated as if she were some form of royalty. When Kren had asked how they could possibly contain such a powerful spirit, Dren had replied that he, Kren, and everybody else in the cave had to treat this dark woman with all the respect and honor that they could possibly show, in an effort to convince her stay. After that day Ranawa was allowed to leave the cave, but always with bodyguards who followed her wherever she chose to go, and always guided her back to the cave when her wandering was done. As time passed and Ranawa found neither her family or any other people of any kind in the area, she resigned herself to staying with the strange hairy people. Her life had certainly changed over the past months. The finest furs, the choicest cuts of meat, the most succulent vegetables and fruits, the most comfortable places by the most well-situated fire in the cave were all given to her without even having to ask. She was given whatever she wanted, so long as she could accurately communicate what it was she wanted. But she finally had to give up on trying to ask these people for a boat - - they simply could not conceive of what it was she was asking for, and they had no memories for boat-building even if they had understood.

Ranawa discovered by observation that the woman who had tried to befriend her before, Sheba, was the group's healer, and that she seemed to know a great deal about plants. As the months rolled by, Ranawa saw the efficacy of her cures, and was fascinated by the plants that Sheba prepared for the ceremonies that the men went off and had on their own from time to time. The two women became friends, and it was with Sheba that Ranawa finally had the breakthrough she needed to have regarding communication. Close association and friendly interactions had allowed Ranawa to gradually learn that certain gestures always accompanied certain plants; that other gestures were always accompanied by certain actions, and that certain words, though clipped and guttural, reliably meant the same thing. From that point on Ranawa rapidly learned the gestured language of the Clan. She also learned a great deal about Sheba's plants and remedies. Because she was not expected to do the tasks that Clan women normally did, she had much more free time.

Dren and Kren had ordered Sheba to help educate their captive dark spirit in every way she could, and to refuse her nothing. Sheba was therefore also freed from many of the more menial tasks that she normally had to perform as a woman of the clan. She grew to enjoy the newfound freedom she had, and used the time to not only educate Ranawa, but to explore her own vast and growing knowledge of the various plants in her environment. She taught Ranawa as well, and the two women constantly had their heads together about some new or remembered plant and what it could do. Ranawa found that she enjoyed the self-experiments with Sheba whenever they discovered a new plant. They were free to wander a much greater distance from the cave than Sheba was normally allowed to roam, and as a consequence they were exploring ecological niches from seashores to mountaintops and everything in between. In the process, Sheba found many plants that were either new to her, but which she was able to capture her Clan memories of; and completely new plants about which she had neither knowledge nor memory of at all. These were the plants they experimented on together. Most of the plants, indeed almost all of them, had little medicinal effect. Some had interesting tastes, and these were gathered for possible use in cooking. Two of the plants they discovered, however, were of far greater interest.

One plant, a low-lying herb that grew only in moist, sandy soils, proved to be astonishingly poisonous. Sheba was glad that she always started her experiments on new plants with only the tiniest bit of material, and then went on to gradually larger bits to discern any effects. On this occasion she had allowed Ranawa to try out the tiny bit of a new plant on herself. Ranawa's tongue and lips had immediately turned red and swollen and she began to have difficulty breathing and swallowing within a matter of moments. Sheba reached into her otterskin bag of medications she always kept on hand for emergencies and pulled out a plant she knew was an emetic that caused immediate vomiting. She gave it to Ranawa with the desired results. Ranawa continued to suffer from various effects…stomach cramps, diarrhea, blistered lips, and more for many days thereafter. She recovered fully , but both women were amazed at the strength of the poisonous plant. Sheba immediately dismissed the plant, except as one to be avoided, but Ranawa was fascinated by the poisonous plant. Back in her home country, poisons had long been used by the various tribes to kill selected enemies when open warfare was not an option. She gathered more of the plant on an occasion when Sheba did not accompany her, and placed a few leaves of the plant - - far more than she had ingested - - into a piece of meat that she took with her to an area near the cave where the clan hunters had repeatedly run across a lone wolf that menaced them and sometimes stole their kill. She left the meat and checked on it again the next day. She could hardly believe her eyes when she saw not only the dead wolf, but numerous other smaller meat-eaters lying dead at various distances from where she had left the meat. Ranawa thereafter kept some of the poisonous plant with her at the bottom of her otterskin fur bag that she had asked Sheba to make for her even though she wasn't a clan medicine woman.

The second plant turned out to be a powerful hallucinogen. Once the two women began ingesting larger quantities of the milky sap from the plant, they began having unexplainable visions full of colors, shapes and even talking spirits. When the mog-ur learned of this new plant he demanded that they stop experimenting with it because it seemed to be a plant that should be reserved for the men's ceremonies. But when Ranawa insisted that they be allowed to continue, Dren backed down.

Both Dren and Kren had both been having increasing doubts about the dark woman as the months went by and she seemed to act like a normal woman rather than a powerful dark spirit. "What has she done since that day she danced in the cave and caused a storm that shows she's any kind of spirit, much less a powerful ancient one?" Kren asked of his mog-ur one day. Dren thought for a minute, then replied: "What does she have to do? We don't ask her to perform any ceremonies, or to make it rain, or to do anything else extraordinary. We just serve her." "Exactly" gestured Kren, "Perhaps we should put her to another test to make certain that she didn't fool us in some way the first time." "What do you suggest?" asked the mog-ur. Kren had been thinking about how to test the strange woman about whom he was having increasing doubts, and he had hit upon a plan. "What if we let it be known, probably through Sheba, that we are thinking of having Ranawa cursed with death?" Kren said "Without actually threatening her, and with immediate denials from both of us if she appears to be getting angry, or starts to dance, or something." "Why would you risk such a thing?" Dren asked, immediately fearful of some awful retribution from the woman. "I'm not going to risk it," said Kren, "as mog-ur of this clan it is your place to test spirits, and it is you who can call most clearly upon the clan's totem spirits, and even Ursus himself, to protect you if necessary. I order you to do so, in a manner of your own choosing. Just keep me informed when you've made a plan."

Dren looked on with disbelief as his leader walked away and then out of the cave. "He may as well have ordered me to curse myself with death if Ranawa proves to be an actual dark spirit reborn," he thought. But he too had been entertaining doubts about Ranawa, and thought that perhaps something could be done to test the woman. But he wasn't going to risk just his own neck in the process. If he were to suffer some supernatural retribution for tempting fate by threatening a possibly dark and vengeful spirit, his leader was going to share in that danger. He made up his mind on the spot about what to do and called Sheba over to his hearth. "I might as well do this while Kren is out of the cave," he thought. He told Sheba he was worried that Kren was going to order him to curse Ranawa with death in the next day or two; that Kren no longer believed she was a spirit, and that he, as the clan's mog-ur, would be forced to fix the bones and utter the words to curse her with death if the leader ordered it. He told Sheba not to say anything about this to Kren, because Kren had ordered him to keep it a secret. "I'm just telling you, Sheba, because you are always with Ranawa and once I begin the curse, she may turn on anyone and everyone near her if she is, in fact, a spirit." Sheba was terrified at the plan she now believed the leader had hatched, and at her mog-ur's apparent willingness to carry it out. She knew she shouldn't say a word to Ranawa, but felt an obligation to let her know, so that Ranawa could flee the cave before the curse was cast. Dren could practically read the thoughts and emotions playing across Sheba's face, and he decided to push her towards telling Sheba by ordering her to stay near Ranawa as much of the time as possible, to see if she showed any sign of suspecting that she was being considered for death. Dren was pleased when he saw Sheba leave his hearth and head immediately over to Ranawa's fire. The two women spoke briefly, and then walked together out of the cave.

"Why do they want to curse me with death, Sheba?" Ranawa asked, not understanding, or even believing, what she was hearing from the clan's medicine woman. "They no longer seem to believe that you have any special powers" she replied. "What kind of powers do they think I have?" asked Ranawa. Sheba then told her, for the first time, what the Clan believed about her, and how her dance and the accompanying thunderstorm had struck such fear into the mog-ur that he had declared her to be a dark, ancient, elemental spirit come back to life who could be neither killed nor set free because of the unknown nature of her powers and their fear of what she might do if cursed with death or set free. Everything suddenly came into focus for Ranawa - - the fear of those around her; the levels of service and freedom she enjoyed that no other female came close to having; the constant guard around her; and the obedience to her demands, and even requests, that the people around granted her. "What exactly does Dren think I am? What kind of powers am I supposed to have?" she asked of Sheba. "Dren believes that you are a spirit that has power over nature; for example the thunderstorm he believes that you created with your dance. He has never named you, but he believes that you are either one of the spirits of rain, wind, or mist, or perhaps some other ancient spirit of equal power."

Ranawa thought for a moment, and had a sudden idea of how she might use the mog-ur's fears and beliefs about her to her own advantage. She asked Sheba if both Dren and Kren believed that she had the power of life and death over the clan. Sheba was taken aback - - did she? Why would she ask such a thing? "What do you mean 'the power of life and death'?" Sheba asked. Ranawa saw the fear on the medicine woman's face and decided to press her advantage right away. "I mean, do Dren and Kren know that I can strike them down whenever I wish? Not just curse them with death, but to actually kill them where they stand without even touching them?" Sheba was appalled, and felt that she needed to get this information back to her mog-ur as quickly as possible. She said: "They may have believed that at one time, but they are beginning to have doubts. Can you truly do such a thing?" Ranawa thought about the poisonous plant that had recently been discovered. Sheba had discarded it as useless, while Ranawa had tested it further and discovered its deadly potency. "Yes, I can" she said, looking Sheba directly in the eyes. Sheba searched for some sign in the other woman's face, posture, or tone of voice that conveyed any falsehood or exaggeration, but found none. So far as she could tell, Ranawa must actually possess such awesome power. "What manner of spirit have we let into our midst?" she wondered, suddenly fearful for her people.