Return to Eden

survived the destruction of her city, fled on the uruketo, the great living vessel of the Yilanè, vanished into the trackless ocean.
    I put her from my mind because of more urgent matters. Although all the murgu in the city were dead, most of the burned city had survived. The Sasku wished to stay with me in the city, but the Tanu hunters returned to their sammads. I could not go back with them for the part of me that thinks like a Yilanè kept me in this Yilanè city.
    That and the fact that two of their males had survived the destruction. I was drawn to this half-ruined city, and to them, and forgot my responsibility to Armun and my son. It must be truthfully said that this selfishness nearly led to their destruction.
    We labored to make this murgu city one in which we could live, and we succeeded. But in vain. Vaintè had found new allies across the ocean and returned once again. Armed with the invincible Yilanè science.
    No attacks with weapons this time, but poison plants and animals instead. And even as the attacks began the sammads returned from the north. Their death-sticks had died in the winter and they could not survive without them. Here in the city we had these deadly creatures, so here the sammads must remain despite the slow approach of Yilanè destruction.
    The sammads brought me even crueler news. Since I had not returned to her, Armun had tried to return to me. She and our son were lost in the deadly winter.
    I would have ended my life then were it not for one tiny spark of hope. A hunter who traded far to the north, with the Paramutan who live in that frozen wasteland, had heard that a Tanu woman and child had been seen among them. Could it be them? Could they still be alive? The fate of the city and the Tanu and Sasku living in it meant nothing to me now. I had to go north and search for them. Ortnar, my friend and strong right arm, understood this and went with me.
    Instead of Armun we almost found death. Had the Paramutan not discovered us it would have ended there. We survived, although Ortnar is still crippled by his frozen feet. The hunters of the ice saved us, and to my great joy Armun was with them. Then, in the spring, they brought us safely back to the city in the south.
    Which was Yilanè once again. The sammads and the Sasku had retreated to the distant Sasku valley and were being followed closely by Vaintè and her forces, dark portents of certain death. And I could do nothing. My little sammad and the two Yilanè males were safe enough for the moment at our hidden lake.
    But the others would die and I could not save them.
    It would be difficult enough to save ourselves for it was a certainty that one day our hiding place would be found. I knew that the Paramutan who had brought us here would soon be crossing the ocean to hunt upon the far shore. Perhaps there might be safety there. Annun and I joined them and crossed the sea—only to discover that the Yilanè were there ahead of us. But from death came life. We destroyed them, and in doing so I discovered where Ikhalmenets was, the city on the island which was aiding Vaintè in her war of destruction.
    What I did was either very brave or very foolhardy. Perhaps both. I forced the eistaa of Ikhalmenets to stop the attack, to stop Vaintè at the very brink of her victory. In this I succeeded and the world is again at peace. My sammad is once more joined and complete at our hidden lake. The battle is ended.
    Yet there were other things that had happened that I did not discover for a long, long time. Enge, my teacher and my friend, was still alive. She and her followers, the Daughters of Life, had found refuge in a new land far to the south. They had grown a city there far from the other Yilanè who wished to see their destruction. Another place of peace, another end to strife.
    But there was yet another thing that I did not know. That creature of hatred and death, Vaintè, was still alive.
    That is what has happened in the past. Now I stand by our hidden lake squinting into the sunset, trying to see what will happen in the years to come.
    CHAPTER ONE
    Uveigil as lok at mennet, homennet thorpar ey wat marta ok etin.
    Marbak proverb
    No matter how clear the river, there is always some darkness upstream drifting down towards you.
    There was silence and peace.
    It had been a hot day, for the days were always warm here. But the evening air was a little cooler with the light breeze blowing over the water. Kerrick squinted into the sun, wiped