Fiction: Three Tales from Sky River, by Vandana Singh by Three Tales from Sky River Myths for a Starfaring Age (htm)

Author:Three Tales from Sky River, Myths for a Starfaring Age (htm)
Language: eng
Format: epub

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The Marriage of Tree and Stone

A myth of the Angudka tribe, continent of Zakrug, planet Omasa, star system Proxima

In Time's childhood the trees could move and talk. They would pull their short, thick roots out of the ground and walk to the river every morning. They would dip their roots in the water and drink. In those days the stones could also move and talk. They would roll from one place to another and mingle with trees and with the other stones.

The world sounded with the creaky, whispery voices of the trees and the low, grating language of the stones, and all was well.

Often a tree would fall in love with a stone, and the stone with the tree, and they would marry. Their offspring were green in color, smooth-skinned, with four limbs and no roots. Their bodies had the pliancy of young, green shoots but within them was a hard framework, like stone.

These children, being rootless and light of limb, could move quickly, and they soon began to explore their world. They bathed in the watery channels the stones made for them and they ate the fruits from the trees.

Among the first children there was a boy called Angud, who always played apart from the others. He had been lamed as an infant when one of his older brothers had dropped him, so he could keep up only with the slow gait of the stones and trees. He limped along with the stones and trees all day and heard their stories, and played tunes for them on his whistle. In return they found him hiding places and protected him from the teasing of the other children. As he grew he mated with both stone and tree, and awaited the time when his own children would be born.

The other children were also by this time grown to adulthood, and they saw that they were quicker than the trees and stones, and were able to use their limbs to build or to take apart. Soon they grew proud, all except Angud.

So they scoffed when a tree father walked unsteadily by on his roots and they frowned when a stone mother rolled too close. They knocked Angud down when he tried to defend his parents, and they took from him his whistle and threw it away. Then they asked the trees and stones to stand forever still.

At first the trees and stones were angry and scolded their children, but the children turned their backs on them and walked away. Only Angud stayed behind. He did what he could to soothe the trees and stones, but the weight of their sorrow was such that they stood still.

At first Angud limped among them, wailing his grief in the two languages he knew, and trying in vain to rouse his kin. But when he saw that there was nothing he could do, he found himself shelter and lived as he had done before, but in great loneliness.

Soon dust and debris covered the stones.

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