Chapter 32

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

Another strong group of shivering wooly-worm feelings shot along Ureeblay’s spine. The unsettling feelings traveled up under his vest and the harness holding his spirit hammer, tingling to the back of his neck under his long braid of black hair. Did this happen, he asked himself again, in part of a dream that I DO NOT remember?

Off to his left through the trees, a pair of birds sang, tweet-twa tweet-twa, back and forth to each other from the boughs under the thick forest canopy. Only a few of Father Sun’s afternoon rays penetrated the leaf cover completely, forming angled shafts of bright light scattered here and there out through the mature trunks and the few saplings that were all around the small clearing he’d picked as his campsite. Now and then a small bug or gnat glowed for a moment, flying through a sunbeam in the woodsy-smelling air.

Still grasping her upright walking staff held in front of her with both hands, the tip of the long oak shaft on the forest floor, Pegasia continued lowering her posture. Her left leg forward, her right knee bending more, she slowly bowed her torso toward Ureeblay. He couldn’t shake the feeling from the edges of his perception that he and the young Centaur woman had done this before in this very spot. The young man was uneasy because he had never experienced a small remembering of the forgotten before.

Of course, Ureeblay had first heard of remembering of the forgotten as a small boy, listening to the legend of The Four Forgottens told by the camp shaman. Then over the cycles, he’d heard the term used many times again by storytellers at congregations during retellings of that important tale. From time to time, Ureeblay also had heard his mother and the healer, as well as a few other adults in camp, refer to having had a smaller remembering.

A smaller remembering happened when a sudden, immediate feeling came upon a person that what they just experienced had happened exactly before in the another life. While the first life was the here and now, and the second life was in a person’s dreams, and the third life was the afterlife, the another life seemed to exist just at the edges of waking life—not quite a spirit world.

When the this has happened before sensation of the another life came upon you, and you quickly turned your eyes to try and see that realm, it always slipped away like a forgotten dream. Anything that happened in the another life would stay just outside your grasp—forgotten before totally comprehended, but not before being experienced and leaving a trace behind.

The legend of The Four Forgotten was a deep part of the Welow Swongli culture that was not talked about very often because the people didn’t remember what was forgotten. The legend was one of the oldest tales of the Welow Swongli. The legend told of the span of time when the first men were being brought forth in this new world. Coming into this land, the first men and women already knew many things: how to hunt, how to gather good things to eat, how to fish, and how to make clothing, weapons, shelters, and to cook. The healers and the Medicine Men and the Medicine Women knew how to make proven plant mixtures and to sing songs that healed the bodies and the spirits of the people. However, the Legend said that on coming into this new world, the first men immediately realized the Swongli in the night skies above were all new to them.

The shamans of the first men were very powerful and knew the ways of the spirit world. They knew how to bring that world closer to this new world so they could cross over and find power to help the first men prosper, as they had in the world before. As each group of first men was brought forth in this land they scattered into small groups and claimed territory throughout the plains, the valleys, the forests, and the foot hills, even all the way to the deserts of the Warm. They even occasionally traveled along the Morn bank of the Toolie River.

As the first cycles of the seasons passed, the shamans of the first men grew unsettled and perplexed. At times, they saw fleeting visions of the world before in their second life, or in visions brought on by the sacred smokes, or the sacred plants, and during purification ceremonies. The shamans talked of these things with each other when they met while they traveled among the people. Finally the shamans decided they must gather together all the scattered first men, who were just forming recognized clans and claiming territory for themselves. Hearing the call of the shamans, all the people traveled to the appointed place for a full double moon. The people visited relatives and made new acquaintances, learned about other clans of the people. There were hunts, feasts, observances to honor the summer solstice, and other ceremonies, guilds and groups were formed, and their leaders picked—that was the first congregation of the people.

During the first congregation, the shamans took hides from the first group hunt and made a big shelter. They burned sage as they sang and danced around the new shelter, sanctifying their work. During the dance they decided they needed to circle the shelter four times. The shamans burned more sage as they entered the shelter for the first time, sprinkled the blood of a fresh sacrificial kill on the packed ground and on the stone ring of the central hearth. Bringing fire to the hearth, the shamans then sang songs calling on the World Mother and the good spirits to live in the shelter for a time and to dwell with them there.

The shamans opened the smoke vent next to the central lodge pole. As the smoke from the first fire rose to leave the sacred shelter, they sang songs and made ceremonies casting out the evil supernatural spirits that might want to do mischief or bring harm to the first men and their efforts. Those spirits departed with the smoke and dissipated on the breeze. When the shamans were done, the shelter was a sacred shelter and became the first Gods’ House of the Welow Swongli.

The shamans of the first men then discussed why they were all perplexed, and had seen visions, and had grown to feel something was missing from the people. They did not know what was missing, but they each could feel the holes that told them the lives of the people were not as they were before coming into this new world. After many nights of singing in the first Gods’ House and sprinkling mixtures of herbs on sanctified coals to make the sacred smokes to bring visions, all the shamans decided that there were four holes in the cultural lives of the people here in this new world. They did not know what had been in each of the holes, but they knew the number of the holes now. They declared that was a start.

The shamans also did not know how the holes came to be in the culture of the people; only that the holes should be filled. The shaman agreed that once the holes were filled, the people would become even stronger than they were—the men would be more powerful, the women more fruitful, and the children even healthier than they were.

It was during that first congregation that several of the shamans had strong new visions. Those were visions foretelling that someday a powerful person or group of persons would come among the people. Some of the shamans said that perhaps one or more of the new men who might fall down from the heavens would fulfill the prophecy with the knowledge of what The Four Forgottens were. Other shamans said that someone from the people would rise up with a vision or group of visions from their second life that would reveal the nature of the four missing elements. However it happened, once The Four Forgottens came back into the culture of the people, great things would start happening.

That was why, from the first congregation of the people who became the Welow Swongli, the number four and the fourth occurrence of anything was the most fortuitous among the people; the fourth had mysterious, prosperous portent. And that was why the counting number, four, and the fourth finger—the little finger—were considered by all Welow Swongli to be the luckiest.

Ureeblay remembered when he found the curved oak limb sections. The sections were neatly separated at every hand-three growth ring; one section was secured across the front of his drag as a trencher. That discovery was made on the ground next to the remains of the fourth lightning-blasted tree he’d ever seen. The luck from legend of The Four Forgottens was again proven correct.

Because of these things, Ureeblay knew that when a moment suddenly and powerfully opened on a person and they felt they’d been in that situation before—that was called remembering of the forgotten, or the small remembering. While everyone would tell you that they were waiting for the Big Remembering, when the prophecy would come true, few Welow Swongli truly believed The Four Forgotten would ever be remembered or discovered. For many of the Welow Swongli, the legend was just a tale the storytellers related around the night campfire or at congregation that explained why the number four was considered the luckiest number on hand.

“Ruanuku nui,” the young Centaur woman said again, this time in a louder voice, “karakia tataki te taura, kia tohunga.

“What did you say?” Ureeblay asked, relieved his deep-sounding voice didn’t break because the tremulous wooly-worm feelings seemed to be constricting his throat as well as his sphincters. “Tell me, what did you say, Pegasia?”

“Ureebay,” Pegasia said in a soft-sounding voice tinged with admiration, “I said, yahr surely ... ssss ... a wise man and a powerful ... spell caster, not yet being ... sss ah master, adept. First yah find such a ahanoa o te mana, such an object of power as this shell. Then you think of paytitioning the te wairua, the spirit of such a great turtle. You must be close to the spirit world to think to do this. Asking for a vision, and then bein’ granted a vision—of what was to be—of me.

“Or—” she pondered out loud. Ureeblay could see her eyes focused from her bowing position on the huge upside-down turtle shell filled with supplies and resting on the load bed of the travel-drag under the high tree limb.

A burst of elation startled Ureeblay. Expanding sensations demanded his attentiveness as his spirit heart spontaneously bloomed from his center in all directions. Through that new, mysterious part of him moving outward from his middle in a sphere of awareness, he was pleased to feel the warm, comfortable presence across the travel-drag on the other side of the small clearing he knew at once was Pegasia.

The young man relaxed into his center and allowed what his spirit heart revealed concerning the young woman’s core—not knowing what else to call his spirit-heart perception of her—to settle into him. The sensations of genuine caring, curiosity, playfulness, and right now—awe and excitement—that he felt coming from Pegasia reassured Ureeblay that he’d not made a mistake by accepting her under his spear.

“—or has it been,” the Centaur girl asked, and part of Ureeblay realized she now had her eyes on him, “visions?”

Ureeblay felt a flush warm his cheeks as desire and arousal flooded his body and his mind. His awareness suddenly focused back when Tanjeara was in his second life, and was there again. She looked down into his eyes, her features illuminated by the banked fire on the raised hearth. Hearing Kalcut’s daughter whimper in pleasure, Ureeblay felt her bare bottom delightfully rub, thrust, and wiggle against his supine, naked hips as the young woman joyfully was riding his prong—hot and wet where they touched. She rested her soft but strong hands on his shoulders, her budding breasts jiggling on her bare chest above him, the rafters of his second-life bed chamber high over her head.

Hearing a bird call from up in the forest canopy brought Ureeblay just as quickly out of his memories and back to the here and now. He felt his connection with his spirit heart and Pegasia collapse along with the consuming memory of Tanjeara. To hide the growing throb in his clout from Pegasia’s gaze so she wouldn’t see it pushing against his kilt, the young man turned away from the Centaur girl. Walking over to downed log holding the front of his drag off the ground, he collected his hickory staff. Ureeblay took in a deep lungful of air and shook his head, trying to will his erection to stop and go away.

“This conversation about my dreams, visions you say—” he managed to say over his shoulder to Pegasia who still was bowing toward him. “Well, it’s a talk for us to have after eating those mussels of yours, after you cook them with some salt, and after we are camped safely with all our gear in tapu land.” His hickory staff in his right hand, Ureeblay adjusted his cock upward in his clout with his other hand before blowing air out of his nostrils and turning back around. He walked to his travel-drag and started stowing his hickory prod, aware that Pegasia was waiting for his response.

“I don’t know, Pegasia, about me being close to the spirit world, as you say it. I’ve not had any kind of training with a shaman about such things,” Ureeblay said to the young woman, feeling regret and guilt for not telling his mother he’d become a man in spirit after the World Mother started giving him his first night-pleasures. He took his caster out of his quiver and racked it alongside his hickory staff on the draw pole with the spears he kept there, their fletching covered by a baggy, thin, leather sack to keep any moisture off the feathers.

“You see,” he told the Centaur girl as he lifted his quiver strap over his head, “I left on the hunting trip before ... ah ... I took that opportunity. When I gave thanks to the World Mother, to the spirits that seem to be placing opportunities in my path on this adventure, and to the great-great-great grandsire of all the snapping turtles in the Toolie valley and then asked for his help, I was only doing what ... what seemed to be right at the time.”

While Ureeblay had listened to the flower-and-the-hummingbird talks his sire had with him after some of his Swongli lessons, now he was embarrassingly conscious as he stood in Pegasia’s presence that he’d never talked to a girl about the subject here in his first life. How was he going to discuss the visions he’d had, along with all the other things he’d experienced in his second life, with a girl, let alone a Centaur girl? How could he tell Pegasia exactly who the World Mother picked to visit him in his second life and to introduce him to the mysteries shared between man and woman—or between two women for that matter—as well as being informed about the intentions of the great-great-great grandsire; was told what to track to lead him to his first successful manhood hunt; and admonished that he should always remember his manners and accept any woman brought to him by the river of his dreams?

Talking to Pegasia about the intimacies he’d shared with the young woman who’d been his neighbor and the first nectar-of-his-youth—even about things he done with Tanjeara and what she’d revealed to him—wouldn’t necessarily kill him, he admitted, even after his embarrassment burned his cheeks from his face. But what would Pegasia think of him when she learned about his sister, Nayohme, and her visits to his second life? Because, for some reason, Ureeblay was certain that the young Centaur woman would not rest until she learned everything he experienced and remembered about his second life.

“So, Pegasia, I would say I’m just ... lucky,” Ureeblay finally said to Pegasia, “and not close to the spirit world. That missing spirit wolf, who is my traveling companion, hasn’t even visited me in my second life to show me anything about my path into manhood or how to ... well, get about in my second life.”

“Yah can call it luck, mate,” Pegasia told him, tilting her head up from her bow just enough so her sky-blue eyes looked out from under her expressive eyebrows. She gazed directly into his eyes and said, “But being close to the spirit world is the real reason yah’ve prospered so—on this side of the big rivah—without getting any shit on your hooves ... Unless what I’ve told yah about my people, and my sit-u-a-shun, might cause yah tah think ... that I have that stink on my hide.”

“I like how you smell,” Ureeblay quickly replied, surprised at what she seemed to be meaning, then feeling a grin grow on his face at his admission of the truth, while wanting to reassure Pegasia of her welcome. “And your farts aren’t bad either.”

“That’s ‘cause I’ve not eaten ... ssss... flesh for some time,” Pegasia told him, starting to grin as well while beginning to rise back up from her bow. “Or had anything much other than trail raytions or grazing to eat on my flight from the Limp Spears. Yah can tell me what yah think about my farts if we find a good crop of beans in one of the old fields, acrass the rivah. Yah can showoff yahr ruanuku skills and make ‘em smell like locust blossoms then ... or else yah can lead from the front.”

“How else does a person lead,” asked Ureeblay, startled, “if not from the front?”

“Ureebay,” Pegasia said, looking back at the huge turtle shell filled with supplies under the vine net on the load bed of his travel-drag, “yah’ve got a lot to learn about how my people do things. Lead from the front—taea!“

Seeing the sun-bright fire meadow several travel-drag lengths ahead through the trees and undergrowth, the young man decided that if the wolf didn’t show up by the time they reached Pegasia’s camp, he would whistle for his companion. He also realized his plan to push his hickory staff down into the turf far out in the meadow tomorrow and use his spear caster to launch three of his latest spears, and then step off his new, longest throw would not happen now. However, pulling his loaded travel-drag back along the path he’d created earlier with the drag, Ureeblay found it actually felt good to be in the harness again. He enjoyed the flow of his working muscles and the feel of the crossbar in his hands. The young man was certain, once he did have time to step off the new distance, his developing muscles and new height would result in a much longer spear flight than he’d ever managed before.

“Yah have another snapping turtle shell, I see, mate,” Pegasia said from behind Ureeblay.

“You have,” Ureeblay chuckled, “exceptional vision, Pegasia.”

“So,” the young Centaur woman said, not rising to the barb, “yah have two water carriers, those trail cakes—”

“—pemmican, it is called pemmican,” Ureeblay told her, moving along carefully with his contraption making only a soft dragging noise as he pulled it over the forest floor. He was proud of how he’d loaded his gear and maintained the wooden frame; there were no creaks or rattles.

“—pem-mi-can,” Pegasia carefully repeated as she walked beside the load bed. “An’ yah say yah’ve got flint and chert, two slings,” she said, her voice becoming excited, “and I see more spears, a roll of worked leather, plaited pigskin rope, those fush heads and big funs, a full backpack, feathahs, netting, and oak trenchers an’ spoons.”

“Fish and fins,” Ureeblay said.

“As you say,” Pegasia replied as she slowed to walk directly behind the loaded drag.

“I do,” he told her.

“So,” the young woman enquired as she continued to walk along behind Ureeblay while looking over everything in the load bed, “yah’ve gathered and made everything here since landin’ on this side of the big rivah? Do yah realize yahr ... ssss ... that yahr spirit hammer is anotha ahanoa o te mana, anotha power object? Yah even carry a supply of firewood. And I like yahr woven baskets too. There should be plenty of reeds acrass the rivah ... if yah want more.”

“Good; I do need more reeds and wide, long grasses. Oh, and I’ve got several lengths of intestines filled with fat,” Ureeblay told Pegasia as he came to a stop just back from the edge of the fire meadow, “if you want any fat to cook those mussels.” Taking his hands off the cross bar, he let the weight of the drag hang from the harness straps over his shoulders.

Pegasia came up along the right side of the drag, and the young man carefully started scanning around the expanse of afternoon grassland. The fire meadow stretched out before them, rising up to the headland and the forest-covered hills to the Cool. He could see a few birds in the distance flitting between the scattered, bare tree trunks, and part of him admired the colorful patches of flowers and a few clumps of bushes scattered about. There was no sign of the wolf and he saw no other large animals, or Centaur warriors for that matter. Off to the far Morn, the twinkling, dark blue ribbon of the Toolie could be seen through a few breaks in the tree line along the distant bank.

In the rack on the pole holding his staff and weapons next to his right hip, Ureeblay moved two of the spears there out of the leather cover that protected the fletching so his weapons would be ready. Then he took the short sling from around his forehead and put the handy weapon on the oak trencher strapped across the front of his two draw poles to the fore of the cross bar. He wanted to be as prepared for danger as he could. With his left hand, the young man got two sling stones out of the shot pouch on his belt near the left suspender of the spirit hammer harness he wore over his vest and around his hips. His flint knife was sheathed next to the shot pouch.

“What weapons do you have,” Ureeblay asked the Centaur girl as he placed the two stones inside the wrap of his sling so the ammunition wouldn’t roll side to side in the bottom of the oak trencher, “ahh ... at your camp to fight with, or to hunt?”

“When I was little, my sire and older brautha started my training in the use of the taiaha; that is a fighting staff,” Pegasia told him as bird calls came from the fire-meadow ahead of them. She suddenly flipped her oak staff up and twirled it around over her head just clearing the saplings nearest them. As the staff increased in speed, the powerful long shaft made a whirring sound close to Ureeblay’s right ear and he could feel its breeze as she twirled the spinning oak up in the air with first her right hand and then her left.

Abruptly the long oak weapon was resting down across the tops of her thighs, held in both her hands. Again, part of the young man noticed the three-finger-wide black band of intricate lines tattooed around her right wrist. Her long, strong fingers lightly gripped the oaks shaft and rested against the velvety hide of her thighs. Her front thighs, he thought.

Ureeblay looked from her right hand to her left and realized the oak tip closest to him came to a stop only about a hand-width away from his right wrist above the cross bar of his travel-drag. Now he understood why Pegasia had smiled after she smacked the length of oak on the forest floor right after she picked it out of a pile of driftwood.

“I’ve continyahed my training with othah taiaha masters in my tribe,” the young Centaur woman told him, turning her head and grinning at the young man. Her exertions had barely moved her long, reddish-brown locks draping down either side of her bare chest and Pegasia wasn’t breathing any harder.

“That was some demonstration,” Ureeblay said as he admired her. “Do you have other weapons?”

“Got several patu, sss, clubs that is, and a war lance,” Pegasia informed him as she looked back out across the fire meadow. “The lance an’ some of the patu were with the travel supplies I ... confuscated from the Limp Spears before I ... dee-parted. The lance isn’t ... ssss... balanced for my size, but I can skewer and thump in a crude way with it. I also braught along two of my best bows and stone-four arrows, those are at my camp too.”

“What kind of weapons are these bows and, ah ... did you say, arrows?” Ureeblay asked as part of him noted a few bees buzzing around bare trunks in the rays of Father Sun above the thick grass of the vast clearing ahead of them. “I mean, a fire drill uses a bow. I’ve used a bow to drill for fire, and for holes.” He absentmindedly raised his left hand from the draw pole and flicked one of the pierced giant babbit claws hanging from his hunting torque around his neck.

“And the word is confiscated. I have to say, I never thought to use a bow as a weapon, Pegasia,” he told her, and as he dropped his arm, he shifted his grip from the draw poles of the drag to the cross bar. “Do you hit with it, like a club?”

“Naw, mate, yah don’t hit with a bow,” she chuckled, making a delightful sound Ureeblay thought. The practical part of him was eager to hear more about the ways she could protect herself.

“Yah use the bow to hit yahr target with an arrow. And I am very good with both bows,” the Centaur girl told Ureeblay, and he could hear pride in her young-sounding voice even if he didn’t understand what she meant. “Yah see, mate, my archery skills are even bettah than my skills with the taiaha, the fighting staff. I haven’t used my bow for big meat since well before I fled the Limp Spears. I didn’t want to risk damage to any arrows.”

Understanding now that a bow and the arrows were used together somehow to hunt, Ureeblay wondered what she considered big meat? And did that mean there was little meat? What did she use to hunt that?

“I don’t have the necessary skills to make a bow—that’s why I brought two—or to replace arrows,” the young Centaur woman said to Ureeblay as she looked to their right out over the fire meadow. “Never knew when I might need the arrows to deal with any members of any taua tapu that Mikaere Narkissos ordered after me. That is ah ... party of warriors sent to bring me back ... unharmed.”

“So you’re saving these arrows,” Ureeblay said, as a jolt of energy pulsed in his blood at the thought of conflict with Centaur warriors, “to use against any Centaurs you might meet up with?” He tilted his head and then added, “Arrows must be potent weapons.”

“Every Centaur male,” Pegasia told him, taking her oak staff in her right hand and putting the tip down on the floor of the verge, “not fram my tribe at least, seems shocked by the pull-weight of my bows ... if I demanstrate my skills for them. Luckily, I didn’t demanstrate my archery skills to any Limp Spears. Now I figah I’ll save that surprise for ahr first confrontation, if it comes ta that.”

Thinking about what she said, Ureeblay saw the confidence Pegasia had in her abilities probably was the reason she didn’t take any weapons with her to hunt mussels. He knew she had a quick mind and he wondered what other surprises she might spring on anyone trying to take advantage of her, let alone attack her.

“Yah ... know,” the young woman said, her voice almost sounding like the coo of a dove to Ureeblay’s ears as she turned her torso to face him, “my protector...”

Her long, reddish-brown hair covering her right breast parted as she turned, showing off the perky handful. Pegasia coyly looked down at her exposed nipple and then back up to capture the young man’s eyes.

Ureeblay felt powerless as his male part started to strain against his clout under his kilt again. His mouth suddenly dry, he managed to suck saliva around his tongue and swallow.

“Most of yahr spears—,” Pegasia continued as her dark eyelids closed over her amazing, sky blue eyes and then lazily opened again, holding his complete attention in her gaze, “—that I have seen, appear ta be new ... and very well made, especially the knapping. I could not help but notice all yahr shafts I’ve seen are... very well made. Even yahr oldest spear; not that I’ve had the chance to ... handle it ... yet.”

“Ahhh...” was all that came out of Ureeblay’s mouth, the weight on the draw poles of his travel-drag attached to the harness over his shoulders rooted him to the ground near the edge of the fire meadow. As a darker hue that Ureeblay recognized now as a blush painted her cheeks, Pegasia continued to hold him in thrall with her sparkling eyes. The young man could no longer deny that they were connected with the promise of ... of something he’d never experienced before.

“When we get to my camp, Ureebay,” Pegasia asked in a soft-sounding voice, “if I show yah my arrows, do you think you could ... make me anotha stone-four?

“Once we’re acrass the rivah in tapu land,” she added, “of course.”

“I’ll tell yah the difference, mate,” Pegasia replied from Ureeblay’s right as they forged Eveward through the grass following along the verge of the forest. The vista of the open fire meadow spread out to the Cool in the afternoon sunlight as a light breeze greeted their faces. “The difference is yah wrap the string of yahr fire-bow around the drill spindle. However, the strings on my bows are not slack—very tight, in fact—and puts much tension on the bow limbs that way.”