Chapter 35

On the wrong side of the river on an unknown planet.

"And she's this tall, mate," Pegasia said to Ureeblay, holding a whole, wet, three-bar mussel up to just below her chin. She stood inside the big stone corral, a hand of steps from the Warm-Eve corner, facing him as they shucked. Firelight projected out of the astounding stone stove diagonally back to her left as a flume of heat and some smoke rose up from the flue, as Pegasia called it, into the night sky. To the young man's right as he leaned against the outside of the corral, was the raised fire pit on this end of the oven. The burning hardwood and growing bed of coals under its stone grate cast illumination up into the high limbs and leaves of the towering oak tree just outside the ancient stones of the wall.

Both turtle shells rested on the Cool end of the long stone bench against the back wall of the corral between Pegasia and Ureeblay. The gallopin' huge, upturned dorsal shell was next to the smaller shell that once belonged to the meat-raiding snapping turtle from the lake below the Cavern of the Wolf.

The evening darkness was well upon them and the surrounding oak forest. Up in the exposed slice of the bowl of heaven that Ureeblay could see out above the corral on this side of the wide trail, it seemed all the Swongli were twinkling down on this world Pegasia told him was called Thessaly. The stars, as Pegasia called them, sparkled in a rainbow of colors giving added depth and dimension to the blue-black sky arching over the big darkness that was the clearing in the oak trees on the far side of the trail.

The young man felt lighter with his spirit hammer off his back, although he still wore the belt and harness he'd crafted for that weapon. His spear quiver rested on the wall farther to his left, along with his short sling. He had put four shot stones from the now near-empty pouch belted by his sheathed knife in four different places atop the corral wall earlier. He'd learned how to prepare his camp defenses from his experience with the wolf pack. Two of his sky-vine torches were on the wall to the Morn of the stone oven, ready to thrust into the coals to light the night. Pegasia had nodded her head, smiling, when he told her what he was doing and why.

Now, moments before, the honey-colored spirit wolf, having grown tired of watching them work and seemingly satisfied with a few raw, shelled mussels she'd begged from them, had headed out into the night—alone. But his furry traveling companion did not leave before she walked to the other end of the stone bench near the fire under the stone grating.

Even with the side of her head in the dark shadows cast toward him from the oven and fire pit, Ureeblay could see the honey-colored wolf had her eyes turned in his direction, anticipating a rebuke. However, her snout, for the third time this evening, sniffed closer and closer to the big, dark-blue bowl draped over with a curiously thin, white section of finely woven material that Pegasia called linen.

But that wasn't the biggest surprise.

The big bowl held an interesting mixture that looked to Ureeblay like stiff, cream-colored mud. The young Centaur woman had worked the ingredients together with her hands while waiting on the mussels to cycle out the river grit.

The young man learned the paraoa pokepoke, or dough, contained more of the flour that she had put in with the mussels. There was salt from the huge bag Pegasia had taken from one of her panniers. Pegasia also added a lesser amount of another white substance the young woman had told him was baking powder.

Then pouring in all of Fly's milk that Pegasia gathered earlier in the smaller ubu bowl, she worked the mixture into the consistency of thick-mud. Finally, his new trail cook used some of his rendered flats-pig fat she'd liquefied in the emptied ubu container that had held the milk, placing the bowl on the heating grate until she was happy with the melted lard.

"You rendered this fine hinu poaka—this lard?" she'd asked him as she studied the length of bulging intestine in the fire light before she squeezed a finger-long section into the emptied, small bowl after she'd mixed the mare's contribution into the dry ingredients.

"Who else?" Ureeblay responded with a little snort. Pushing his furry traveling companion away from the bigger bowl on the bench for the second time, he'd said, "Certainly not this lazy spirit wolf who already likes the smell of your dough."

The dough wasn't the biggest surprise either.

"Tell me, Pegasia—" the young man asked as she'd put the smaller ubu bowl holding the solidified fat near the edge of the raised grate, seemingly not worried about heat damaging the vessel. "—what kind of dark-blue stone was used to fashion such fine bowls? They seem heavy, and I know of no Welow Swongli craftsman who could get such a smooth surface, inside and out. Of course, my people only use stone for special ceremonial containers."

"Ureebay, that is not stone," Pegasia had said, taking the smaller bowl of now liquefied fat off the grate with a pair of wide, shaped, wooden tongs she'd had in her cooking supplies pannier. "Your people don't know about pottery ... about ceramics either?"

"Get away from there, young lady," Ureeblay had called to the wolf sniffing the covered dough that Pegasia said was rising. She'd explained that meant baking powder was creating tiny bubbles in the mixture, making it get bigger and less dense. "Three times is enough!"

With her pink tongue lolling out of the right side of her mouth in the shadows from the reddish firelight, the wolf turned and slunk silently toward the front wall of the corral and the opening to the Centaur Way.

Mostly likely to hunt for more appealing and fun prey, Ureeblay thought, as the sound of the gurgling creek behind him in the mature trees added to the night air the returning sounds of crickets and the crackling of their two fires. His armpits and sides under his vest now felt much better after he'd quickly washed off his sweat using handfuls of the cold water from the creek.

The glow from the flames inside the stone oven built nearly against the Warm wall of the corral to his right and near the corner cast an almost steady, yellow-red light out of the firebox, as Pegasia called it. The bright flames illuminated the open space all the way to the center wall of the ancient, limestone-block enclosure behind the young Centaur woman shucking mussels.

"Cleo has dark skin, like me," the exotic young woman answered further as she worked a well-fashioned, thick, chert blade between the top and bottom valves of the wet mussel she gripped in her left hand. "She has many moko on both arms and shoulders tellin' of her accomplishments. Sheee, Ureebay ... yah would say, tattoos—as I have on my right wrist." Pegasia held the chert blade up into the fire light, twisting her wrist and making her intricate tattoo move back and forth.

"Yah have no te moko, Ureebay," she told him, and he could hear the guarded curiosity in her voice, "that I can see."

"No, not at this time," he admitted, enjoying their conversation as Pegasia and he worked.

"My tribe," the young woman said, reaching into the huge, upturned shell for another mussel, "as we learned at the beginning from our Maori Mentors, hold that te moko be tapu."

"My people rely on tattoos," the young man replied, "to tell a stranger's affiliations without the need for questions. Are they a recognized member of some camp's Hunters Society—is someone of the Storytellers? And of course, it is easy to spot a camp's shaman, or medicine man, or priest ... while perhaps not as easy to know a different camp's healer without the proper facial tattoo.

"Welow Swongli tattoos display status and skills—the more tattoos the more accomplished the individual."

"Other than tha First Three tribes who spurn te moko, claiming the Dauk-taur wore none," Pegasia informed Ureeblay, "the rest of the tribes, known as the, sss, Hand-four Pillars—the Nine Pillars—hold our tattoos are sacred, and learned te moko arts from ahr Maori Mentors. A warrior's face can inform all who see so much about that woman or man's skills, honors, status, and ancestahs ... be they Maori or a membah of one of tha Nine Pillar tribes."

Ureeblay was surprised at all the different names the Centaurs used to distinguish their tribes and groups of tribes. His people saw themselves as Welow Swongli first, and then identified with any societies or special groups they had earned membership in as well as their camp, and—finally—an individual recognized their clan affiliation. Or so it seemed to Ureeblay.

"When I return to my people," said Ureeblay, and looking down, he pried apart the bivalve shell of the mussel he held in his left hand, "the hunters of my camp will deliberate with the shaman and the camp healer to decide if my experiences on this side of the Toolie will be acceptable as my manhood trial. If they agree, then they will consider if I had a successful first hunt and if I am now able to provide for myself and, ah ... others." Quickly checking the meat inside the opened mussel for a pearl, Ureeblay then cut the succulent morsel loose from the ligament.

"If they find value and demonstrated skill in my accumulated gear, supplies, and other... exotic examples ... of what can be found in the land of the Centaurs—" Ureeblay chuckled as he reached over the wall and dropped the tender meat into the smaller turtle shell holding their accumulating harvest. "—I will be considered a man among my people, a new member of the Hunters Society of my camp, and so receive the Hunter tattoo on my face.

"In addition," Ureeblay said, hearing a hint of pride in his deep-sounding voice, "I want to become a trader, having gathered unique items I feel certain will support that aspiration in ways none will be able to deny. And so I hope to receive a second tattoo on my face."

As he leaned over and fished another bivalve out of the gallopin' huge turtle shell on the other side of the wall, the young man thought about this conversation, then all their conversations during his short time together with Pegasia—had it only been half a day, he wondered in amazement? Ureebay realized he was using words talking to Pegasia that he'd only used before when speaking with his sire, his mother, the camp healer, and the shaman. It was as if his boyhood way of communicating with his friends—two who were now dead to him, as far as he was concerned—had been shed on this side of the Toolie.

"Yahr tales of this side of the rivah alone should get yah into the ranks of yahr people's storytellers, mate," the young woman said, her voice almost sounding giddy. "This gallopin' huge shell will see tah that all by itself, I'd wager. 'Cause Ureebay, there is a mana atua about yahr manly person that anyone with eyes and a sensing heart will recognize after they spend some time around yah. Mate—the trail yah trek bounds the spirit world."

Looking at Pegasia, Ureeblay forgot the mussel he'd just opened with the thick chert blade he held.

"I say—yah're deservin' of at least three moko to make yahr face truly beautiful, my brave, accomplished protector. And in that way, all will know yahr true mana."

"What are you saying, Pegasia?" he asked, putting the pry blade on the stone wall in front of him. "What does this, mmm, mana atua mean? I remember this mana—you've used it before."

"Well remembered, my Whakaruruhau!" the young woman announced. A big, white-toothed smile appeared on her exotic, dark face in the firelight.

The young man found Pegasia very attractive and the emotions beaming from her face and luminous sky-blue eyes warmed his middle. He absentmindedly used his right thumb and index finger to check for a pearl around the fleshy innards in the opened valves held in the palm of his left hand.

"Mana is the important word, and it can refer to several things, 'specially when used with other words. However, here it can mean somethin' like ... sss, aura in yahr tongue," said Pegasia. "Yah know that word? You have an aura of power about yah—mana atua, I say. Atua can mean many things, Ureebay. It can be ah powerful ancestor with ah continuin' influence in yahr life, it can be a spirit—ah deity, ah supernatural being, perhaps ah demon or a god."

Ureeblay just looked at her, having trouble comprehending what she was trying to tell him.

"Yah see," said Pegasia, "at the rivah, I was so frightened at the sight of yah when I came up outta tha water—so many questions, impressions, fears, all stampedin' through my mind—but it was my sense of yah, mate, that scared me most. Howevah, yah just sat there an' looked at me. Then, when yah called me ah Hurst-man; offending me ... ssss ... it made me wish to piss out my rising anger on yah. Then I discovered my anger controlled the stampede, an' I was able ta look fram my fears to you, Ureebay."

Without thinking about it, the young man severed the meat from the ligament. He put the opened butterfly that was the harvested mussel into the small turtle shell. Then Ureeblay almost tossed the meat into one of the rims of Pegasia's big, plaited-hair, double bags holding the other empty shells and the mussels she'd decided were bad because of cracked or broken valves. Across the wall, Pegasia didn't comment as he corrected his mistake.

"That was when yahr mana first touched me," Pegasia informed him as she concentrated on opening a large mussel that made her well-formed left hand look quite small. "It brushed ovah the nape of my neck—not grabbin' hold of my heart, not heatin' my loins—but it whispered softly inta the inner ear of my heart, hidden, where dreams sleep.

"I've thought on this, Ureebay," she said, prying opening the big mussel. "I know now that's why I asked for yahr protection right off. My inner self recognized yahr mana atua before my chatterin' mind did, mate; and I think it happened after I stepped outah that muddy rivah ... The rest started to slowly have its appeal as we went walkin' up the rivah bank, talkin' like this. Then yah touched my hand."

"But what does that mean?" he asked, starting to work on the shellfish he'd retrieved after putting the last opened shells where they belonged.

"Mana also means in yahr words ... ssss ... prestige, influence, authority, spiritual power ... charisma, mate," the beautiful young woman said as she put down her chert pry blade on the stone bench holding the great-great's dorsal shell.

"The seers of my people who study the spirit world with wisest of our Mentors say mana is ah supernatural force inherited at birth." Using the thumb and index finger of her right hand, she plucked a perfect, thumbnail-sized pearl out of the big, opened bivalve in her left palm.

"See," the young woman told Ureeblay as she gazed deep into his eyes from across the ancient wall and held up the magnificent freshwater jewel between them, "ah sign yah should listen to my pearls of wisdom on this matter, my handsome monkey fish protector. Then yah can believe me, or not; yahr decision."

"Enough! Enough about me, Pegasia," the young man laughed, feeling startled, proud, and embarrassed all at once by her words and her seriousness. Before he let all she'd just said take hold and overwhelm him, Ureeblay added, "Now I command you to tell me more about Cleo!"

So far, only Pegasia had found any pearls, and the one she held between her right thumb and finger was truly a treasure. It seemed to Ureeblay that it could be Pegasia who was commanding mana under the Swongli above. And he was certain that she was even more beautiful by the firelight and made the pearl paltry by comparison.

The young man shook his head to try and clear all the emotions and mushiness out of his brain and his middle as he separated the bivalve in his left hand. There was a hard lump in the meat that wasn't a pearl, so he tossed it with the other shells.

Gurrwhhorrwalllruhhhohl Ureeblay's stomach growled long and loud, almost sounding like some animal trying to complain. He took that to be a sign they needed to finish shelling the mussels so his debt-servant could finally start cooking his supper. He wondered what these mussels and the mysterious biscuits were going to taste like.

There was a surprising, two-hand-three fine examples of other pearls Pegasia had already discovered, resting inside a big three-bar shell to his left, balanced on the wall. Ureeblay was careful not to brush against the collection as he put his left hand down into the water inside the Great-great's shell searching for another mussel.

"You heard me woman, enough about me," he chuckled, looking at Pegasia's face, partially hidden in the shadows of the firelight. And finally finding one of the few left, he pulled a wet bivalve out of the huge turtle shell and shook the water in her direction across the wall. She laughed, and he could see her tail swish behind her long, four-legged body.

Taking a deep breath, and lowering his deep voice even further, the young man added in a gruff-sounding voice. "Tell me more about your Mentor, wench. Do as you're told or your rump will be sore for not obeying me." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, a little shiver went through his middle, realizing he sounded like Achinay's mean uncle yelling at his debt-servant.

"Ureeblay, you nauhea! Yah just want tah hear about her two-legged body, yah one-stream fish," Pegasia teased as she pried open the bivalve in her hand, acting unimpressed by his teasing threat.

Putting the meat and empty shell where each belonged this time, the young man was happy Pegasia was teasing him again and not talking about him. He already had more than enough new ideas and a growing number of questions to ponder this evening. He didn't want to hear anything else about this supposed aura of his. Leaning back across the wall, mindful of the shell holding Pegasia's trove of pearls, he moved his left hand around down in the water. He located only two mussels that were remaining. He grabbed the larger of the two, it was much larger.

"Best you obey me, woman," he told Pegasia. "Now tell me more about Cleo."

"Oooo," the Centaur young woman let out, swishing her tail brisk enough he could hear it behind her well-formed lower body. She shifted her two front hooves and then told Ureeblay in a snarky-sounding young voice, "Then I will do as yah command, oh great one."

As Ureeblay brought his upper torso back from over the wall, Pegasia checked the open mussel in her left hand and then cut it from the shell. The young woman made of point of carefully putting the meat with the rest of the fat innards before tossing the two connected valves into the wide rim of what was their trash basket for now.

"Yah see—" she said, reaching into the great-great's dorsal shell and moving her left hand around until she located what Ureeblay knew was the last mussel in the water. He placed the chert blade along the crack between the two sections of the shellfish in his left hand.

"—Cleo attracts ah lot of attention when she visits Highest Ground or wherevah else we go," the young woman informed him in the same tone of voice his sister used when she gossiped with some of her friends, thinking there wasn't anyone about to overhear their embarrassing conversations about others. "An' not just 'cause she's a Mentor; she's got lots of curves, an' really big u—sss, that's her breasts—always jigglin' with every step she takes, every move she makes, sometimes even seems ... with every breath she shakes," Pegasia laughed.

And raising her hands up with her blade and the last, unopened shellfish, she moved her arms apart. Starting to shake her shoulders, the surprisingly demonstrative young Centaur woman caused her own small breasts to move under her black vest as both supple, front panels swayed in the firelight, but didn't threaten to expose any more bare skin.

Ureeblay almost dropped his mussel and the borrowed pry blade on his side of the wall.

"I ask her from time to time," Pegasia sighed, going back to work on the mussel in her left hand, "if they hurt; and Cleo just wallops me and laughs."

Gladness filled Ureeblay's heart at the easy, open, guileless manner, and her sense of humor that Pegasia was willing to share with him. It was as if they'd known each other and been fast companions since they were little—and there was the growing promise of something more.

He worked on the final bivalve he fished out of the upturned gallopin' big turtle shell. Having trouble getting the chert blade in between the tightly closed mussel, he looked up. In the center of the corral, Ureeblay saw the heads of Fly and Bit in the sharply defined shadows. The hoiho were standing just on the other side of the bisecting wall that supported the panniers holding most of Pegasia's gear. Closer to the end of the wall, the stones supported the front of his drag and kept some of his gear off the ground.

"I cannot believe, mate," Pegasia said, opening the mussel in her left hand with another well-rehearsed push and twist of her blade hand, "that I'd evah tell any boy, fish or othahwise, some of what yah're hearin' coming out of my flappin' mangai. And earlier—" the young woman told him, lowering the volume of her voice to just above a whisper, "—well, I did mean what I told yah."

A thrill went through Ureeblay's body at her admission.

"And I'd never have realized how much I enjoy a girl talking and acting as you do," he told her with a big smile on his face. Ureeblay finally worked the chert blade between the two valves, avoiding thinking further about what he'd said to her earlier, and how she'd responded.

Hearing one of the hoiho over behind the center wall nickering, the young man focused on the sound and thought it was made by either Fly or Bit. He figured Pegasia's hoa pai were relaxing for the night and content to stay on the other side of the dividing wall.

On arriving at the corral, and after Ureeblay had taken his spirit hammer off his back, removed his quiver, and put out his sling stones, he'd helped Pegasia. Together they remove the loads and protective blankets from Fly and Bit, then he'd learned how to curry i te hoiho. That activity, she'd informed him as he followed her directions, was done every day at the end of the trail whenever her hoiho friends carried loads—without fail.

Currying involved his using a finely crafted, stiff-bristled brush that was rubbed down every bit of each animal's hide. He'd never seen any bristles like the type used to make the brush before, but hadn't had the time to say something to Pegasia as he worked. There also was a bone comb to use on the hoiho's manes and tails as well he found out.

Ureeblay discovered Pegasia's four-legged friends loved that kind of attention. The big hoiho seemed careful not to step on his feet when they moved a hoof as he ministered to the animals, one at a time. The young man was certain that was because he'd remembered the warnings Pegasia gave him about how to approach and act around the rear of a hoiho.

Ureeblay was diligent and had concentrated as best he could on his task—brush in hand—while trying to keep Kix from getting in the way. The young woman had removed the burrs from the filly's mane and tail while showing Ureeblay how to use the bone comb, so he'd know what to do once he was done with the incredible curry brush. Persistent with getting in his way, it was obvious the young filly had wanted her own hide curried.

Meanwhile, Pegasia was bending her torso over and, one foot at a time, she had checked and cleaned the hooves of her hoiho. The young woman inspected the top and the bottom of every hoof in the deepening evening light using her fingertips as her eyes.

Thinking about it as he'd worked, the young man was surprised how long it must have taken Pegasia to take care of her friends at the end of each day of travel when she was on her own. As they worked, Pegasia told him, "See to yahr hoiho, see to yahr loads and gear—only then, see to yahr needs."

"Every hand of days traveling," the young man replied, "I take everything off my travel-drag and inspect the lot, so I know the condition of my food supplies and water, or if I need to collect more emergency firewood. Then I make sure all the joints and rawhide lashings on the drag and load bed, as well as the nets are in good condition."

"I told yah," Pegasia said, "I noticed yahr gear is clean an' taken care of; and now I know why."

As he'd combed Bit, Ureeblay was thinking it was such an unheard of idea to have such big animals as trusted traveling companions and not for dinner. Then the spirit wolf had rubbed up against his leg, wanting his attention. The young man could only laugh, realizing he had an animal of his own as a trusted traveling companion. What would his mother think? What would his people think when they next saw him and his new household?

While enjoying the smell of Bit's curried hide, Ureeblay had considered that each of Pegasia's two big hoa pai easily were able to haul the entire contents of his travel-drag without any problem all day long and over longer distances than he'd be able to manage. Ureeblay was sure Pegasia would argue her friends were a blessing in her life, and the young man could see what a boon their abilities provided Pegasia in allowing her to travel with so much gear and additional supplies. He felt certain it was the affectionate bond he saw between Pegasia and her friends that mattered most to the young woman.

However, after his work helping Pegasia at the end of today's journey, Ureeblay had experienced the extra effort needed in caring for her traveling companions. His empty stomach had made sure its needs and complaints were heard on at three occasions before the young Centaur woman was satisfied with his efforts to curry her friends.

Making Pegasia's parai kakahi, her cooked mussels, was a laborious effort Ureeblay was finding out. After the hoiho were seen to, they took the animals across the Way to a big clearing in the forest containing a deep covering of sweet clover so they could graze. Walking back across the trail, Pegasia had directed him to empty all of his supplies out of the great-great's dorsal shell.

Without asking why, Ureeblay put some of his supplies and gear atop the Eve end of the dividing wall, which he'd leaned the front of his travel-drag against before he'd gotten out of the harness. He'd rolled out his oldest sleeping mat before placing the rest of his supplies and gear from the huge shell on the woven-grass ground cover. Then together, he and Pegasia moved the empty shell over to the wide stone bench. Pegasia started telling him what she wanted him to do as they put the big shell on the ample stone surface several strides from the Warm back corner of the corral.

However, before he agreed to prepare the shell for her, Ureeblay had taken Pegasia's right hand and both of them faced the upturned shell. In a heart-felt gesture of respect, the young man then said words of thanks to the spirit of the Great-great-great Grandsire of all the crested-back snapping turtles.

Ureeblay thanked the turtle's spirit for the use of his magnificent shell this evening to clean the mussels taken from one of his rivers. Ureeblay then asked that the Great-great to protect them, give them wisdom, and share in their coming feast. Although, the young man did admit at the end of his invocation, that tributary where Pegasia gathered the shellfish was not one the Great Grandsire would have ever swum in because of the mud in the water.

Then, using two collapsible leather buckets from her gear, Ureeblay quickly washed out and then started filling the inside of the gallopin' huge turtle shell with fresh, clear water from the forest creek behind the corral.

While Ureeblay gathered and poured fresh water, Pegasia carefully transferred all the mussels into the upturned shell while checking each one for chips and breaks. With the good mussels in water, she went over to the panniers and returned with a white bag that took both her hands to carry.

In the evening light, Ureeblay at first though it was a huge animal bladder of some kind. It bulged out like a round, ripe, woman's belly that held a baby about to be born, the young man thought—well, a two-leg baby at least. Coming up to the Great's upturned shell with the bag; Pegasia put her load down on the stones of the wide bench. Leaning over the wall so he could get a closer look as she untied the rawhide, the bag seemed to be made of tightly woven, white threads. He was in awe of the craftsmanship, determined to examine the material much closer at some point. Being hungry, he didn't want to ask Pegasia any questions about the bag right now.