Beneath the early morning Purple Sky, dew clung to the land like a cold sweat of fear. Beneath the Purple Sky, men, women, and children lay in their one refuge: sleep. Here, they forgot the Red Sky, the hot wind, and the scorch of stones; they knew only the solid and brief darkness, and it was better that way.
The tribe awoke: the hoarse scream of the hunters' shofars resounded throughout the village. Hawarrr! Hawarrrr! Hawarrr! rasped the ram horns, prying into houses and jabbing into ears like mean fingers. On and on they went, hoarse and ugly, demanding the people arise from their one refuge, their brief treaty of peace. And so they came, like spirits from their graves, shambling, marching, and howling as they passed house after house along their way.
The villagers did not join the march with empty hands; after wiping the sleep from their eyes, they began with simple instruments of their own. The clackclackclack of hollowed, chitin clapsticks gave a hideous rhythm to screeching bone whistles, coarse sounds beneath the continuous hoarse wail of the hunters' shofars. Clackclackclack! Reeech! Reeech! Hawarrr! Together, the hunters and villagers walked deeper into the village. Together, they made a crude and daunting song. The strength of the tribe is always greater than strength of one the Old Man always told them.
The march came to the village's well, a gaping hole at least three men's heights in diameter with stone steps winding down its insides, ending on a ledge some six or seven men's heights below. From the ledge, men and women would lower needlegrass ropes with pots carved from agmagog bones and goat hide buckets, into the darkness where they could not be seen, where they would dip into unknown waters and return filled to the brim. Most of the time.
All the tribe's water came from the well. The ancient memory of who had dug the well and cut its brown stone walls was lost. The well was no accomplishment of the tribe now, only its most precious source for life.
The few hundred men, women, and children of the village gathered around the water-pit, still clacking and screeching. Hawaaarrr! Hawar, Hawaaaarrr! wailed the shofars with finality. The clatter stopped. The screeching stopped. All was quiet and still.
Eight men dashed from the crowd, into the circle formed around the well. Their bare chests swelled with the scarred muscles that marked them as hunters. The clacking began again, this time slower: clack, clack, clack, clack! The men rolled with the beat, disjointed and inhuman, like ghosts flickering in and out of the living world. Their arms stretched out. Their heads tucked down, faces covered by their long, black hair. One foot led the other in a slow trot forward and around, always bouncing to the rhythmic clack, clack, clack, clack! Steadily, the movements grew smoother. Steadily, they grew faster. Clack clack clack clack!
Reeeech! The chitin whistles screamed. First a few, then many made the long wail. Some dropped in and out of the chorus when breaths ran short and had to be caught again. There was no order, no organization to the screeching of breath and bone; the screech bit at the ears like a sharp flame, harsh and wavering.
The hunters began to flail with the crude timbre, black mops flopping about their heads, brown limbs swinging in circles. Red Sky: day had come upon the village. Sweat flew from the twisting, bounding hunters. The furnace of regular life had come, reaching down into the lungs of every man, woman, and child, oppressing the flesh with its tight grip.
The well hummed; a low and throaty growl rolled from its mouth, and when the first dancer heard it, he stopped. The others stopped. The clacking and screeching ceased. Silence. Stillness.
The groan from the well was alone. It grew stronger and closer. Sweat dripped down across the hunters' scarred skin. The whistlers' lungs sucked wind, chests and bellies heaving. Everyone listened to the slow and erratic chant, a throat song climbing the steps of the well. If there was any language to the undulations of the song, no one in the tribe knew of it. The singer approached the lip of the well.
His body was as lean as a skeleton crawling from an ancient grave, except for a distended belly. His bare, brown skin was mottled with tags and dark spots. His forearms and chest sported a thin, hoary layer of hairs. Long, yellow and black nails hung from his fingers and toes, scraping and clacking against everything they touched. The filthy, white hairs of his head were tangled with beads, stones, and bits of bone so that when he shook his head, the wild mane cackled hoarsely like a dying man who sees the jest of futility as he chokes and gurgles with a failing throat.
The Old Man always wore but two garments: a leather thong with a few pieces of cloth hanging from it and one of the numerous grotesque masks that all shared large, snarling faces.
Today, nasty, needly teeth sat in several snaggled rows around a wide mouth that amplified the Old Man's voice. Two red-brown cloth rags hung over the teeth like lolling tongues. The gnarled face of the mask was painted in dull reds and muddy green. Beads of rock and bone hung off the edges of the mask in long, rattling strands. Massive yellow eyes with red pupils and little red and black veins were relieved into the mask, and they stared with the same hungering look at every man, woman, and child.
The hand which carved the mask had cut no holes for the Old Man's own eyes; how he could see was a mystery unquestioned, for he could do many things that the tribespeople could not understand, like predict the passing of the agmagog or make the slimy green beer the tribe drank during feasts.
He reached his hands up above his head as his throat song crept to its end. He growled at the sky above as though, perhaps, defying it in its own tongue, a conversation no one else could be a part of. Silence. The Old Man yanked his head back down to look into the crowd, rattling his mask and hair.
His voice, like stones scraping together, shot into the crowd: "I tell you now the words of the Red Sky: 'You will rise beneath me; you will die beneath me; only the tribe will I let remain. Only the tribe can survive my scorn. Let the tribe be strong, strong enough to take its place as my brother against the sands and stones of the Thirsting Lands.' Remember, these are the words of the Red Sky."
The tribe cried out with united hate and praise. The Old Man rattled his head, and they stopped.
"The Red Sky tells us how we must live. The Red Sky wants us to serve his purpose; we are no friend to the Red Sky. The Red Sky beats us with his hot and devouring breath, pressing us down upon the Thirsting Lands where we will be devoured between them. Defy him! Defy the Red Sky with your every breath, and one day the tribe will overthrow him.
The people screamed and howled again.
"Follow me!" cried the Old Man above the din. "Follow me through the endless burning, through the scorching of our skin. Let us cast off the flesh that hinders us and bids we remain behind, bids we lay down to die, bids we forsake our destiny of overthrowing the Red Sky and the Thirsting Lands."
The tribe was frenzy-filled like a horde of mad beasts, frothing with enmity. The Old Man pointed his way forward with two boney arms, two crooked fingers. The crowd made way for him. The Old Man marched through the path. The six hunters followed him first. The rest of the hunters made their own ways through the crowd and followed them. The villagers, in their few hundred, went last.
Through the village they went, this time not with coarse music, but with raw shouts for carnage, for the ripping and gnashing of flesh. They bounced up and down on their way, pushing each other forward. The Old Man never turned to look at the hunters, and the hunters never turned to look at the villagers.
When the villagers crowded into the yard they called the Theater, they saw the Old Man standing on a dried mud and sandstone dais. His arms were raised high.
The yard was surrounded by a low, dry stack stone fence. There were several empty hovels surrounding the yard, creating the vague sense that the Theatre was deep in the center of the village, when it was in fact on the outskirts. No one came to the Theatre if they did not have to. Even children running wild did not dare each other near the place of rituals and sacrifices.
Before the stage, before the Old Man with his arms raised high, there was a circle of stones. Its diameter was some measure wider than that of the village well. The two or three dozen hunters stood around the circle; the villagers crowded behind the hunters. The crowd saw a tall, thick trunk, a pillar carved from the bone of some creature, giant even for its breed, slain long before anyone could know, long before time could be recalled.
A woman was bound to the bone pillar. Her hands were tied up over her head. She was stripped bare from head to toe. Her long dark hair hung from her slumped head; it tried to cover her breasts, tried to protect a modesty that she was not afforded. Her legs were limp, and she was still, almost hanging from the needlegrass ties about her wrists.
The village knew of her: a concubine to the Old Man. No one really knew who she was; the Old Man's concubines were chosen around five or six years old. They were taken from the surface, leaving behind their old names and friends, and brought to the Old Man's dwellings beneath the village. On occasion, the villagers would see them paraded during a feast, or they might see one or two when they went to seek wisdom from him. Rarer still, this would happen:
"Behold! The tribe is gathered!" said the Old Man. "I tell you this: here we are at the Circle of Sacrifice beneath the burning watch of the Red Sky. Here, we give life. We give lives to our enemies, the Red Sky and the Thirsting Lands. Life must be given so that life can be had. I tell you this: remember the goat. Remember how it serves us with its flesh and bones. Remember that soon the agmagog shall be taken so that we may feast. Life must be given so that life can be had. Only the living can give; if we cannot give life, then we are already dead before we die.
"I show you now a mother of many who has become a mother of none; her time has come. Many nights have I lain with her, but she has come to birth only the lifeless. Here are the bones of the first and second. Here is the corpse of the third. I tell you now, there is but death upon her, and so we must cast her flesh from our bones. Life must be given so that life can be had.
"Let her be taken by our ancient enemy, the stones of the Thirsting Lands. Let the Thirsting Lands have the dead and those who birth death, for so it takes, so it is, and so it will be. But, let the living cut from themselves the dying so that life may be had."
"Hum baba!" roared the crowd, spit flying from their mouths, vocal chords chafing and burning from their own rage. Every man, woman, and child found a stone clenched in hand, pumping their fists over their heads, begging to throw.
The Old Man stretched his arms out wide and looked up. He clapped his hands. The crowd went silent.
"I tell you this: through woman is life. The woman bares her newborn babe and defies for the tribe the Red Sky and the Thirsting Lands. Lifting the weight of a child, she is strong. When through the woman there is no longer life, there is no longer defiance, and she cannot serve the tribe. She can lift no weight. You must now carry her. She burdens the tribe.
"She is weak, and so through her is death. The tribe must sever the dead flesh. The tribe must maintain the life which the woman has bared so as to defy the Red Sky and Thirsting Lands, and so we pour out her own life to our hungry enemies, that they may be sated for a time while the tribe continues on. The strong know when to cut flesh from bone. The strong know when to give life to the stones."
"Hum baba!" roared the tribe.
"Hum baba!" echoed the Old Man.
Kuhnaan who Hunts, hurled the first stone. It smacked against the woman's brow, causing her body to jerk. The woman wailed with physical pain, but from her also came the deeper wail of the breaking of a heart when she understood what she had become; she was one who did not belong, one who served no purpose. To the people and to the Old Man, she was no more worthy of life than a sick goat. She was a burden. Blood dripped and puddled on the dusty ground, the reddening dirt made muddy by the woman's "gift" to it.
"Let the life of her flesh spill down on the ground. Let the life of her lungs spill up to the sky," said the Old Man, now sitting, watching from behind his monstrous mask.
Another man ran up and pelted the woman with three stones, bouncing them off her bare ribs and hip. A woman nailed the spurned concubine on the lips in between weakening sobs. Red blood washed across her teeth. She turned and tried to hide her naked body from the rocks, but each twist only opened her up to new attacks from different directions. The stones smacked! popped! and smacked! against her reddening, swelling skin.
The crowd continued to pelt and pelt until they were bouncing stones off a pale but purpled and blackened corpse. The Old Man never moved, never winced, never shuddered; he only sat with his legs crossed and stared through his monstrous mask with its yellow eyes, as still as the dead woman's heart.
Hawaaarr! went the cry of Kuhnaan's shofar, the hunter who had thrown the first stone. The final, lagging stones flew through the air to pelt the corpse under the coarse cry of the shofar.
The hunter walked up and pulled out his chitin knife. He sawed through the needlegrass ropes from which the burden hung, cutting it loose, and lifting its stiffening, bruised body up into his arms.
The Old Man stayed seated, still and quiet, staring just as he had. The crowd stood quiet, waiting with anticipation for the next steps in the ritual, their hatred and frenzy sated for the moment.
Kuhnaan looked like a strange hero holding the corpse, the burden he had just helped kill, and the people of the hero cheered for him and for themselves, relishing in what they had done together.
"I tell you this," said the Old Man as he stood up. "Death is not enough to satisfy the thirst and hunger of our enemies; our burdens must be given completely to the enemy, for hunger is not satisfied in slaughter, only satisfied in feast. Go now! Take the corpse to the Teeth of Thirsting Lands. Sing for the tribe, Kahaanishgazi, the Song of Death. Sing when you lay out the corpse for the Thirsting Lands, the Red Sky, and the beasts that serve them.
"When you are between the Teeth and the Safe Land, when you can see each in their direction at the same time, scatter death to summon life. Cut apart the fetal limbs and entrails, and as you return so shall you find the agmagog coming from nowhere to devour the black meat of the little corpse. Look toward the Right Jaw of the Thirsting Lands, for that is the nowhere from which the beast will come," said the Old Man.
"Go now! Go beyond the Edge of the World, and face the perils set by our enemies. Placate our enemies, and seek you that which will serve the tribe. I tell you this: a beast that will sate our hunger will come as the Lands and Sky are distracted by she who gives her life to them."
The hunters, nearly forty total, set about gathering the tools for their journey, helped by the raisers and women. They lowered the chitin sleds over the Edge and then climbed down themselves. By midday, they were on their way through the sands of the Thirsting Lands, marching, climbing over and down the tall dunes, into the land of the enemy, the land of peril, the land from whence life could be drawn through death.