The Fire Bargains

On the cottongrass plain among its blue ridges the Anat-ka clan dug in heels for the winter. From the backs of their shorthorns they unloaded the heavy doorframes and the ribs and crowns and lattice walls of their yurts and divided them evenly between the households. Then, when each family had chosen their spot around the kinsfire, the Anat-ka men began to fasten the skeletons of the yurts together with cords of sinew. The women and older children brought over sheets of felted wool for the outer coverings and, together with the men, lashed them tight against the skeletons until they could feel none of the wind inside. This was doubly important because they would be staying for the season. It was always an embarrassment to re-lash your yurt.

In the evening after the final, largest yurt was lashed, the feyk, or head of clan, declared the beginning of winter. While the young ones were busy with the yurts the elder Anat-ka had foraged the near land and slaughtered two of the herd to prepare a feast celebrating the changing of seasons. Well through the night there was the good smell of woodsmoke and roast shorthorn and natuk stew and meat dumplings fried with suet and other nice-tasting things, and throughout the camp was the laughter of children playing games or chasing one another around the kinsfire. And for the Anat-ka of age, there was, of course, laqna, or sunwater. From the saddlebags the great waterskins were distributed and the laqna imbibed by all men and many of the women. It was a strong drink—for the stouthearted—and soon after the Anat-ka would settle in to share tales by the kinsfire, as was their way.

Among the Anat-ka, Arluk-urhu was the best storyteller. He was an uncle of the current feyk so he was old but not tired or wizened, and knew many stories, and when he spoke his low, pleasant voice moved exactly as he liked. When describing a storm he could thunder so you could picture the flood clouds and feel the rain on your scalp, and when he recounted good weather you would sweat in the sunshine and smell glassflowers on the breeze. It was no wonder then he was a favorite of children, who begged him this night to tell them a story. Arluk-urhu feigned hesitancy but after countless exhortations he could put it off no longer and he sat down cross-legged on a platform before a crowd of rapt children, eagerly awaiting his words.

Before he began Arluk-urhu produced a snuff bottle of porcelain from within his layered clothes and carefully spooned a small amount onto the back of his hand before taking it in the nose. Then he sniffed strongly several times. “Do you remember why we honor the kinsfire, little windshrews?” he asked, probing the crowd.

Pasi, who had seen seven winters and was one of the brighter girls, answered. “Because Nimūk the hunter brought it to us!”

Arluk-urhu chuckled with great sagacity.

“Very good. It is good you know. When my soul joins the eternal hunt, I suppose I can meet my forefathers with pride.” He thought for a moment, before waggling a finger at them. “But do you know the whole story?”

“The whole story?”

“Yes, windshrews, the whole story.”

The children looked up at Arluk-urhu and conversed in hushed tones, but not one of them spoke aloud. He looked out at them, unblinking.

“Have you heard of the thief who swallowed the moon?”

Even where they were close to the kinsfire his resonant voice inspired a chill in their young hearts. Arluk-urhu put a hand over his chest and smirked widely so in the firelight the children could see his yellow, crooked teeth.

“No, urhu, please tell us!”

Arluk-urhu laughed. “If I must,” he said, and in his low, pleasant voice he began:

***

“It is said in our oldest stories that when the great hunter Nimūk fashioned our forefathers from the silt of the Jarul-ayil River, he was afraid for them, for their new land was as vast as it was ink-dark and full of monsters and sjinna, evil spirits. So, in his mercy, Nimūk went to Dzhangar-het, the great fire mountain, to seek out his youngest sister, Shulma, the weaver and keeper of fires.

“It took him six days to travel to the foot of the mountain, running across the cottongrass plains on swift winds, but when he arrived at the mountain the great stone gate was shut tight, as was the duty of Shulma, to guard her fire from wayward hands.

“But Nimūk was not deterred. ‘Shulma!’ he shouted in his booming voice, standing tall like a garan tree rooted in soil. ‘Grant me fire so I might bestow it upon my people!’

“At first Shulma did not respond to her brother, for the request was inane. Granting the gods’ fire to creatures fashioned out of river silt would be a fool’s errand, a pearl among natuk. But all the same her brother stayed at the foot of Dzhangar-het and shouted the same thing each day. ‘Shulma! Grant me fire so I might bestow it upon my people!’

“Day after day he persisted. In wind and rain, in sweltering heat, in drifts of snow he pleaded with his sister to take pity upon his people. Until at last, after many, many days, there came a point where Shulma could stand the shouting no longer. She felt pity for her brother. But she was no fool and was charged with guarding the fires keenly, as she had been told by their father Pōk, god of the wide earth. She would not give him fire—at least, not for nothing. So, to test his resolve, she demanded from him a price.

“‘Give me thy bow and thy arrows, brother,’ Shulma said, her voice echoing down the mountain, ‘and in exchange I shalt give thou thy fire.’

“When he heard this Nimūk took time to think. He was a hunter and, as you know, no hunter is truly complete without their bow and their arrows. But if he did not give fire to his people, no doubt they would be devoured by evils lurking in the dark of the land. So, after much thought, Nimūk agreed to give her his bow and his arrows. “I can still hunt with my spear and the strength of my arm,” he said, and relinquished them to Shulma, who, as promised, returned him a sliver of flame the size of a seed.

“Quickly Nimūk ran back to our forefathers, and when he returned, he saw that in the dark they were already beset upon by many evils, many sjinna. With his great spear and his strength and sight he helped beat them back and gave his people the sliver of flame.

“‘This is fire,’ he said to them. ‘Grow and tend to it and keep it close among thy kin and it shalt stave away evil. Use it to drive out monsters and sjinna, to light the dark land and make of it thy home.’

“And, before long, they did.”

***

Arluk-urhu paused there and brushed his beard with the back of his hand. He took another nostril full of snuff. “That is how we Anat-ka, as well as the other nomad clans, came to honor the kinsfire,” he said, sniffing. He looked upon a slew of attentive, but slightly dismayed faces. “What? Is that not enough for you?” he asked, wounded.

“We’ve heard that one so many times, urhu,” said Pasi, her eyebrows bunched.

Horam, the feyk’s youngest son, ventured after her. “What about the thief who swallowed the moon?”

Feigning surprise, Arluk-urhu slapped his forehead with his hand and tutted. “Of course! Yes, yes. Of course. The thief who swallowed the moon. How could I forget?” Suddenly he lurched forward in his seat and caused a few children seated in the front row to jump. “Who’s the one telling this story, hah? ‘Have patience and we will arrive’. Horam, is that not what your esteemed father told us this morning when our clan was on the move?” Arluk-urhu exhaled and waited for silence. “Not a lick of appreciation for artistry nowadays,” he muttered. “Now, please, if no one else has anything stupid to say, ti-nimūkshe, let us continue.” He waved his hand.

***

“When the great hunter Nimūk returned with fire our forefathers rejoiced for they could at long last live together upon the land. But it was not all well as man was not like the gods and did not have the ceaseless patience of Nimūk exhorting his sister at the foot of Dzhangar-het. Fire is a tricky, fickle beast requiring constant attention but man as its keeper is prone to hunger and sleep and many other distractions. And when the fire was gone there was no way to ignite it again in the darkness. So it was common that clans lost their fire and would be set upon by the beasts of the land and the monsters and sjinna, until not even their gleaming white bones were left.

“Nimūk saw this, and wept, and in his great mercy he resolved to return to the great fire mountain where his sister Shulma lived. Another six days he ran across the plain and again he stood at the foot of Dzhangar-het, in front of the stone gate, and shouted the same words to his sister as he had so many times before. ‘Shulma! Grant me fire so I might bestow it upon my people!’

“This time Shulma did not wait very long before she answered her brother for she knew his patience and obstinance. But she was also unhappy he had come again for her fire. She would make it harder for him this time. ‘Nimūk,’ she asked, her disembodied voice traveling down the face of the mountain. ‘How much shalt thou give, in exchange for this fire?’

“Nimūk took time to think again and he replied. ‘I am a hunter and I shalt give thou one of each beast of the plain, sister. From the smallest windshrew to the largest tusked pōk-va, one of every head shalt be laid at thy feet.’

“Shulma heard this and refused outright. ‘No, brother, that is not enough. For thou art the greatest hunter of all the gods and to set thou upon the plain with such a duty shalt only be a pleasure. No, if thou wouldst like the fire thou seek, give me thy spear, so that thou shalt not be inclined to return to me again.’

“This time Nimūk was at a loss, as he had owned this spear since he was a boy and it had been with him for many a campaign against his uncle Vōhammu, god of shadows, and his sjinna. But he thought of the suffering of his people and set his teeth. ‘Shulma,’ he said to his sister, ‘I shalt give thou my spear. But thou must grind it to a burning ash in the great fire of the mountain and scatter it across the sky, so it becomes a boon to those who have lost their way.’

“Shulma agreed, and before long the spear was ground to a glowing ash and she scattered it across the sky where it settled and became stars. Nimūk returned to his grateful people where he taught them to use stars to navigate and find each other amid the darkness of the land.”

***

Arluk-urhu stopped again and swept a hand above him, where stars swirled in the pitch-black sky. “There above is proof of Nimūk’s boundless devotion. May we never forget it,” he said, entreatingly.

“But what about the sun, urhu?” came a voice from far in the back, away from the kinsfire.

“Who said that?” Arluk-urhu put his hands around his eyes and squinted. “Is that you, Kulliq?”

Kulliq, the orphan boy, retreated sheepishly into his knees.

“The sun, eh?” The urhu chuckled. Seated, he stretched out his arms and massaged his old back. “Don’t get ahead of me, windshrew.” He cleared his voice.

***

“Now the great hunter Nimūk had given his bow and his arrows in exchange for the kinsfire and his spear in exchange for the stars, but his people still struggled to live off the land. No animals would come near for fear of the fire his people carried and no crops would grow in the cold hard ground. So, after deliberation, Nimūk had no choice but to travel back to the gate of the great fire mountain to barter once more with his sister Shulma over an appropriate amount of fire.

“But before Nimūk had even arrived before the stone gate Shulma’s discontent visited him in the breeze. ‘Despite my best effort thou hast returned to me once again, brother, eager to extract some new favor for a price,’ she hissed. ‘No longer. I now ask for something thou dost not dare give, for the two of your eyes, the sharpest and keenest of all the gods and all the land. If thou cannot give these, then begone with thee. Trouble me no more.’

“Having twice bartered at the foot of Dzhangar-het, Nimūk knew he should not test his sister’s patience for her anger was one he knew to be vicious and all-consuming. But his eyes were joys of his birth, clear water reflecting the world, and to be without them was to cease to be a hunter altogether. Nimūk thought and thought until he could not bear to think any longer, and afterward he spoke thus to his sister: ‘Shulma,’ he said, ‘thou shalt have my eyes but shalt not keep them. Take both and set them ablaze and cast them into the sky, one in day and one in night, so they may look down and light upon the world. That is my request, and a final gift to my people.’

“At this, Shulma was slightly taken aback, for she did not expect her brother to acquiesce. But she would honor her pledge. Curious, she asked him, ‘Why dost thou go so far for thy people, brother?’, to which he replied, simply, ‘They art my children, sister. There is nothing I cannot do for them.’

“So there at the foot of the great fire mountain Dzhangar-het, in front of the stone gate, Shulma came before her brother Nimūk, and, lifting his chin, plucked his two eyes from his head and brought them back to steep in the eternal flame of the mountain. When both burned bright and clear, she cast them into the sky, and lo, the dark land and the world beyond was illuminated entire and a rainbow of colors bloomed, for Nimūk’s eyes were made the sun and the moon!

“For sixty days they burned brightly, and Nimūk the blind returned from the mountain. Upon his arrival, a celebration was held full of much joy and reverence, and Nimūk was at last content feeling the heat of the sun and moon and hearing the raucous cheer of his people.

“But not all was happy with the new sun and moon. Within his deep forests, Vōhammu, god of shadows, was furious the land had turned alive with light and color, and he retreated to the shade of his towering trees to plot their destruction. For sixty days the sun and moon lit the world until, at last, Vōhammu charged the swiftest and most loyal of his sjinna, the three-eyed stormbird, with an insidious task. On its great wings the stormbird flew over the land up to the horizon where it waited until night when the moon was lowest in the sky. Then, opening its beak wide, it swallowed the moon whole and, just as quickly, plunged the world into darkness.

“For three nights it held the moon captive in its belly, but thankfully Shulma’s fire was too hot to digest and the great bird had no choice but to expel it from its stomach. But Vōhammu the vengeful, the petty, would not let it go so easily. When the moon finally emerged from the stormbird’s craw he told it to swallow it again, and to continue swallowing and vomiting it in perpetuity, so the moon would dim and change shape with the days.

“This the bird has done, on Vōhammu’s order, for eons, slowly swallowing or vomiting the moon each night without fail, tarnishing Nimūk’s great legacy.”

***

Arluk-urhu ended his tale in a whisper. Some of the children had fallen asleep, but most still watched the urhu closely. “That is why the shape of the moon changes with the passing of the days, why you can see the beak of the three-eyed thief open and close around Nimūk’s eye,” he said. “And that is why we, the children of the plain and the Jarul-ayil River, curse Vōhammu and forsake the shadowed forests where he hides and plots to drive the world back into darkness. Beware,” he warned solemnly, his voice rising in pitch with the wind, “the strange creatures of his realm. Steer clear of the wood and stick to the cottongrass and, like me, you will live long before you return to your forefathers.” At this point, he pulled out his porcelain bottle and partook of it again.

Before long the festivities around the kinsfire drew to a close and the older Anat-ka shepherded the children into their yurts for the evening. Occasionally there were the cackles of a few laqna-addled stragglers but much of the evening’s stories had been shared and the Anat-ka could take some pride in that. Even so, in the same place he had spun his tale, Arluk-urhu remained cross-legged before an audience of none, looking out beyond the circle of yurts and into the wide blue cottongrass plain. Above, amid ashen stars, hung a pale sliver of moon, in the slow process of being swallowed completely.