New Under the Sun by Kevin Major

Author:Kevin Major [Major, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cormorant Books

THE BROTHERS SLIPPED ONTO shore at the camp of the Nookwashish. The sun left a cloudless sky, the end of a second punishing day. The long light of summer would linger, and when it did finally go, it would be gone for but a short while before showing itself again. What night there was filled with a skydance of other, coloured light. The dome danced its irreverent dance, above a famished clan dragging itself toward a covenant of food.

The two brothers, messengers from a far-off bounty, cut apart the bundles and walked among the hungry, feeding them, reassuring them there was more.

‘Under a Kindred sky,’ Tuanon said to them, ‘the Spirits have their words for us.’ Strange stirrings in Tuanon’s embittered mind.

Nonosa led him to Nookwashish too weak to leave their lodges, then made his own way to the lodge of Sabbah.

Sabbah lay alone in her sleeping pit, withered, in the dimmest of light, the air surrounding her thick with the smell of piss.

She barely stirred. Nonosa called her name, and then a second time, a little louder. She opened her eyes. For her nephew she offered only a most uncertain smile.

He brought forth food, hoping it might do what his voice failed to do. He made for her a paste of cod-fish and water, brought it quickly to her lips.

Sabbah ate some of it, closed her eyes and fell asleep. Nonosa stroked her dry, wrinkled forehead, smoothed her vermin-ridden hair. Such ache he had not known since the passing of Démas.

In the early light of morning Sabbah opened her eyes, began to moan about her sorry state. Nonosa carried her weightless body to a lodge where the strongest of the other women took her in, fed and washed her back to tenuous health. Nonosa dragged away the filth and that of the dead ancient ones who had shared her lodge, and condemned it to a fire.

Only then did the brothers lay eyes on Remesh. He stepped through the doorway of his lodge, a shadow of himself, yet without the gauntness of the others. He walked with a limp toward them.

‘Left your own mother to die?’ Tuanon taunted.

Remesh peered at him through crusted eyes. ‘The Spirits forced the Kanwashish past their greed. Had you come before, you could have proclaimed yourselves the saviour of us all.’

Tuanon lashed at him, without a sliver of fear, for not one of the Nookwashish had the strength to turn against him. ‘Your vanity, Remesh, has brought nothing but starvation!’

‘Starved because you forbade the Nookwashish to come to the sea,’ said Nonosa.

‘Starved your own mother with your pride!’

Remesh slouched to the ground. His hand fell to a rock. Nonosa kicked his hand away, sent Remesh sprawling.

From the lodge of Remesh emerged Rokia, tattered and fatigued. Tuanon turned to her in a mad rush of emotion.

Rokia’s body tightened at his gaze.

‘I have not hungered as much as some, Tuanon.’

‘You have made a home in his lodge?’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘I am his second wife. Did no one tell you?’

Tuanon cringed, a great weight thrust against his chest.

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