Round Moon, Horned Moon
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Chapter One
The woman lies on her back in the dried brown weeds, clutching her distended belly, a stick clamped tightly in her jaws. She jerks her head violently. Eventually her sobs become whimpers, then cease. The sun moves across the sky.
A mangy brown dog approaches. A piece of fur is torn away from one of his ears, a dusty scar in its place. The dog sniffs the ground and begins licking the blood on the woman’s legs. In the distance a man whistles. The dog looks up, pauses, barks twice, and then goes back to licking the blood.
The man approaches. He stands and looks down at the woman, her tangled hair, her lifeless eyes. He stares intently at a black stone on a thong around her neck. “Maybe she is an outcast?” he asks the dog. He squats next to her and idly flicks pebbles at her body. “Maybe she is from the Cone Mountains? Very far.” The dog glances up quizzically, then goes back to licking the blood.
The man stares at the black stone for a long time. Then he puts down the spear he is carrying, pushes the dog aside, and picks up the bloody baby.
Together they walk across the plain towards a distant plume of smoke in the clear and endless sky — the dog in front, then the man carrying the baby, then two scraggly goats. The air is dry and hot, the wind steady. Away on a distant rise, following them warily, stagger a small pack of skinny wolves. Yet they dare not approach; they have learned the purpose of the man’s pointed stick. The dog sniffs the air and hangs his head like a traitor.
They walk on for three days.
* * *
At the edge of a small cluster of mud-brick houses, the man gestures out into the desert. The women of the village lean forward and inspect the baby. They smile and pass the infant around, taking turns holding him, except for one old woman who says that green eyes are evil. The baby is given to the wet nurse who suckles the lambs that they catch in the hills.
* * *
After he learns to walk and talk, the boy, who is called Nut, is given to a blind man, who is called Erdu. The blind man ties a leather cord around the boy’s neck and tells him that if he tries to run away the gods will inflict a horrifying curse. “You will be my eyes,” says the blind man, grasping the boy by the throat, “and I will keep you alive.”
The villagers feed the blind man because he talks with Abeth, the god who makes food. The boy is fed because he belongs to the blind man. The boy becomes tall. He learns to cut grain and dig for roots and insects. He becomes skilled at finding water in the desert.
The moon lives and dies many times.
* * *
A lioness crouches beside an infant girl squalling in the rocks, the firelight of the village far distant. The cat sniffs, then rises up, reaches out a paw, and bats the child. The baby wails and the lioness pulls back, then pounces on the girl. The huge cat seizes the baby in her jaws, crushing and shaking her until the squalling ceases. With the bloody corpse dangling from her mouth, she pads off in the darkness toward her den and her cubs.
Meanwhile, a woman lies asleep in the village, snuggled with her three boys. She tosses and turns with fitful dreams. It has been a very bad time, hot and dry. The wheat has not returned to the fields. She has had to make a hard choice.
On the other side of the village, Nut is packing Erdu’s scant belongings into a leather sack. “Why are we leaving?” the boy asks.
“Silence!” says the blind man. He tugs the cord, pulling Nut toward his sightless face. “Do you know the trail that leads toward the Cone Mountains?”
“They are far away, Erdu. No one has been there.”
Erdu twiddles with the small pouch dangling from the thong around his neck. “I have been there,” he says.
That night they sneak from the village in the faint light of the horned moon, past the withered fields, past the scaffolds of the dead. Gaunt and lifeless bodies, emaciated carcasses lay waiting for birds to pick the bones clean.
“Hardly a meal for a bird,” mumbles Nut.
They scramble up a dry streambed and over a stony ridge, pulling three skinny goats they have stolen.
* * *
A group of warriors emerge from the desert, riding asses. They trot into the village, wearing animal skins and armed with spears, daggers, and arrows. A huge man, wearing the head of a lion as a helmet,\ dismounts. Almost instantly, a small man wearing an oversized necklace of bones quickly alights and scuttles to his side.
“Ask them where it comes from,” says the big man.
The small man holds out a black stone and addresses the villagers, who are silent and confused.
“Ask them again,” says the big man.
An old man steps forward and replies. He points out across the desert. The little man turns to his master, saying, “There, beyond the sun. In the Cone Mountains.”
“Ask him how far.”
The old man throws his hands high in the air. The little man turns and says “Endless days.”
The man with the lion helmet turns to his comrades. “Burn the village and slay the men,” he says. “Kill the old women and the boys. Take the young girls.” He points to the gaunt livestock in the corral. “Slaughter a goat to Kush. Take those two aurochs. Let the jackals have the rest.”
The warriors smirk and set about their tasks.
The big man strolls out into the desert and sits down on a rock. He looks out across the heat waves toward the distant Cone Mountains.
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