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| bookZ.ru collection
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| Leonid L. Smirnoff
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| lena Moshko
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| Heart of Atlantis
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Elena Moshko Leonid L. Smirnoff
Heart of Atlantis
Fairy-tale
1
“Who’s there?”
“Hush! Sh!”
“Who’s that?”
“It’s me, Kayumba. I’ve come to save you, Umanga!”
“Kayumba …”
“Have no fear, I’ve put the guards to sleep. Grandmother Maganda gave me some magic herb. I made small balls from it, spit the balls at them through a tube out of the bushes and they fell asleep. They will not wake up till sunrise. And we will have gone far by sunrise! Grab the liana! Oh, how heavy you are!”
It was fresh and nice atop. After staying in the musty deep pit for three days he savoured the fragrance of the mysterious Atlantean night with all his primitive scent.
“Let’s flee, Umanga! If we hide in the mountains before sunrise, they won’t find us!”
He gazed admiringly at this slim twelve-year-old woman, a true huntress-maid. She risked everything. She condemned herself to eternal expulsion, to live hiding from people till her very last day. To live away from her close people, from her tribe. And everything – for his sake! There appeared a goldish glimmer on her long black hair in the light of shadowy, gleamy, unconceivable stars. Her slim strong legs seemed to be running already there, towards the mountains, to save him. She was restlessly making some fatuitous movements:
“Let’s flee, Umanga!”
He took her in his arms, cuddled her. Maybe if she had come on the first night, he would have run away with her without hesitation. He would have been running on the sunbeaten grass warm even at night with all the irrepressible agility of his strong fast legs filled with the energy of fourteen years of age; he would have picked up Kayumba in his arms and would have been running, running with her to the place of the saving mountains tops, where they would be together for many hundreds years to come, where a new tribe would be born: his and hers.
She embraced him squeezing herself up against him breathless. She did not understand why he stopped at pause:
“Let’s flee, Umanga!”
Maybe if she had come on the second night he would also have fled with her. He still had some doubts then … He knew that at sunrise after the third night he would be taken to the precipice and thrown down. He would be flying long. Like a bird, a strong, independent, carefree bird. Yes, there were stones down there, yes, he would crash against them and his blood would splash the neighbouring rocks. But there would be several seconds of flying before that …
“Let’s flee, Umanga!”
But this was already the third night. What had changed? Nothing exteriorly. He had just stayed one night longer in the deep pit with smooth upright walls, damp and clayey. He will not be taken to the precipice after the third night. He will go there himself. He, Umanga, the eldest son of the Great Chief, he, the strongest, fastest and smartest among the young warriors, he who had been recognized by his tribe to be the best among the best so many times. It was he who was to be sacrificed. Otherwise his tribe would lose the war with the aliens. Otherwise the whole tribe was in for death or slavery at best. No, at worst it was slavery. At best it was death.
“Sorry, Kayumba…”
He went back down by the same liana thrown by Kayumba. He waited for the dawn. The first sounds above him made him start. Guards? Had his time come? Would he be taken there, to the rocks?
No. This was Kayumba coming down to him.
2
He was eating corn pones while Kayumba was watching him perplexedly. She could hardly control herself. It must have seemed to him from the outside that she, a daughter of Atlantis, did not know what it was to cry, to be lost in doubts! Did he want to be reputed to be a hero? And what about her?
“No, I’m incapable of feats either for the sake of duty or glory”, she touched his hair, “My happiness is here. Here it is, in my palm. I just want to live – quietly, peacefully, calmly. I’m tired of being afraid. And I don’t want to hear anything else about war, death, stone-mortars and barbarian customs. I feel frightened. Protect me!”
Umanga just stubbornly shook his head in silence. He didn’t want to hear anything. If his were free at that moment, he would stop up his ears. Kayumba flared up.
“I don’t understand why you, a son of the chief, should be sacrificed! Who will stay alive if the best among the best perish like that, pointlessly? Cowards, punks? You are among strangers, Umanga. I’m your house, your home, your abode. Wake! You have been betrayed! You are being killed! Not like a hero but like a victim!”
She imagined what it would be like if … She stayed alone. Everything would lose its meaning. In the moonlight his hair was streaked with the gold of meadows reminding of fields sown with wheat. The corn smell was so homely … Umanga was so close. She wanted to welcome every morning with him. To mix up days looking into his brave, lively eyes. To make pones, to cook soup, to make the bed, to drink every instant, to catch every glance, to feel every sigh. He was so close and so far.
“You are saying the wrong thing, the wrong…” responded the youth and looked into Kayumba’s eyes with a long penetrating, clever and commanding look.
“I love you.”
“The wrong thing…”
“Let’s flee, Umanga! Let’s flee.”
“It’s wrong… It’s absolutely wrong!”
He moved awkwardly as if he wanted to dismiss something irrelevant.
“I will not just step into the precipice, I will accomplish a feat in the name of those who have a sixth feeling, whose heart has bled out, whose mouth has dried up from hollow words and false promises. In the name of those who want to win this war! I am foreordained to revive. To revive out of emptiness if I do THAT! There is no light in the escape for me. What’s the point of living in the platitude after that?”
There came a long silence. She felt herself perishing under the heaviness of his look, so strange and cold. Then something incredible happened. All her hopes, all her joy, all her childlike touching dreams seemed to flow out of her. They flowed out and sank into the clay of this damp pit. Her hands weakened. Kayumba gave in.
“What else can I do for you?”
“That’s it. I knew you would understand me. I believed that. You will leave in the morning and will cut the liana so that it wouldn’t occur to anybody to save me. And to prevent anybody from thinking that I wanted to flee. I’m not a coward!”
“Leave you? I can’t!”
“You can. You must. And not only for my sake. Not only for our sake. In the very heart of Atlantis there is a secret passage where you will take the tribe in case of danger.”
“Why me?”
“Because you will be the only person to know how to find the way there. I know a secret, listen to me…”
… They talked long. The words interlaced like branches in a thick forest. It was impossible to untwine them, to unfasten, to separate them with one’s hands. Snatches of phrases jumbled together clutching at one another with their curves. The midnight sounds echoing the young Atlantes soared upwards into the sky and then fell with yellow leaves into the dark night. And music was born carrying their non-childish dreams into the world of semireality, into semidreamland.
3
Great Chief Astrodon was indignant. How dared the priests choose his eldest son as the sacrifice? He was beside himself with rage. The sound of the stone-mortars that were constantly driving aliens away from the walls of the fortress was overclouding his thoughts even more. The triumphant warlike yells of the Atlantes that never stopped in Atlantis gave way to squeals of stones and aliens’ howl. All this made him nervous.
Astrodon stood motionless on the steps of the temple leading to the altar and looked up. The starry sky over his grey head was especially deep, clear, convex like a lens on that night. It seemed as if it wanted to unearth the mystery of universal existence.
“My son, Umanga, will never see such stars again. How dared the priests dispose of his destiny in such a way? He is the best among the best! He should live, fight, combat! His children must give the world great-grandsons like him! Strong, handsome, smart!”
Astrodon was going to the temple to ask the High priest for mercy or at least for a delay. They couldn’t help listening to him. The word of the Great Chief was weighty. But he had made his decision – he would go the whole hog, use the right of the last veto that was unconditionally fulfilled in any case according to the laws of Atlantis and this right was given once when the chief was abdicating …
“Let them immolate me, Astrodon. Umanga will then take my place!”
4
Umanga was watching his huntress-maid stroking the feathers of the little tame falcon who unerringly found her coming here at her whistle. He wished everything were over as soon as possible. Kayumba did not cry. The Atlantes matured early. While in further civilizations a twelve-year-old girl was practically a child, a twelve-year-old Atlantean female was considered to be quite self-dependent if not an adult woman. And a fourteen-year-old hunter was already a protector, a getter and could become a chief. It was probably too early to be the high chief.
It was dawn. Although the liana thrown by Kayumba was still in the pit they were waiting quietly. Out of the pit the night stars looked bright and huge. At night darkness was not depressing. The darkness in the pit merged with the darkness of the southern night. At night the darkness in the pit was not anything independent and strong. The darkness in the pit in the morning, the darkness in the pit in the daytime was oppressing, depressing, dominating.
It was hard to count the time here. The curtain of his destiny was to be dropped at dawn but it had dawned quite a long time ago and they were still waiting …
When a sunray touched his face he understood that it was noon at least. It was only at noon that the sun in its zenith was looking so deep, down to the very bottom, that the ray was able to reach him, remind him of the blazing world that stayed there, overhead. They must have fallen asleep waiting for the guards. The afternoon was obviously well along.
The liana was still hanging there but Umanga did not dare climb it. If he did purely out of curiosity, he might run into the guards the moment they came to pick him up. The guards would think he was trying to escape. He, Umanga, the eldest son of the Great Chief, he, the strongest, fastest and smartest warrior among all, he who had been recognized by his tribe so many times to be the best among the best.
It will not happen! It will not. He will stay here. And he will wait.
When the first stars flashed in the sky there were no doubts left: they were not coming to pick him up. Neither Kayumba nor Umanga had eaten or drunk anything for almost twenty four hours. The Atlantes could do without food or water much longer than people of further civilizations. Civilizations that came after their, Atlantean civilization. But there was no point in staying in the pit any longer: they were not coming to pick him up.
Kayumba let the falcon out for a reconnaissance: to check whether there was danger. And reading “no” from his wingbeat she said:
“I’ll be back soon.”
Gripping the liana she climbed to the surface. She was soon back. She brought a leather bag with water and a couple of corn pones. Umanga could also have done it but they had diametrically different approaches to life, a male one and a female one: he dreamt of perishing beautifully, heroically, she dreamt of just living.
5
The hunting knife was to cut off the flexible wooden tail the very first time but instead of that it became ungovernable. At some moment it seemed to Kayumba that she was cutting her own hands with this knife in the predawn darkness. Pain was tearing her from the inside, she did not understand what she was doing:
“Forgive me, Umanga!”
She was in a hurry: the guards who she had put to sleep the day before could wake up any time. Kayumba added them one more ball each – let them sleep.
Her hands were shaking. The liana twisted, spinned, bent but it hardly yielded to the blade. One awkward movement and the knife bounced off somewhere wounding the girl’s hand. What an absurdity! She had been holding it with its blade towards her palm! Blood spouted from the wound. And then … everything that she had been keeping in broke loose. Weeping she fell on the grass. “No, I’m bewailing him, no!” She looked up towards the sky. “I’ll come back for him. I won’t be late. I’ll take away all the people and come back. Kind, evil, friends and foes. Everybody. Nobody will dare touch him!” She knew he was also looking into the high sky watching grey clouds yawning indifferently.
Even now when he was in the pit and she was high above him Kayumba felt his closeness and could read his thoughts. “If I don’t do that he will consider me weak at best and a traitor at the worst. No – a traitor at best …” Kayumba stood up slowly and looking around found her knife. Her fingers first touched the blade finding the sharp edge and only then they unhurriedly grasped the haft. She needed all her forces, all her courage to make this flying swing of the knife on the liana:
“Forgive me, Umanga!”
The liana squeaked and fell writhing and squirming like a long black snake into the open mouth of the pit. An easy prey.
Kayumba made another swing of the knife in a different direction and unclasping her fingers threw the knife away as far as she could.
“Forgive me…”
And as if falling on the fly she darted away from the place.
6
The seemed to have given him a fourth day. It took three days to get finally convinced of the necessity of this great mission, of its great purpose.
He also needed time to feel the uniqueness, singularity of his far-reaching role. Yes, it was he, Umanga, who was to be sacrificed, and only he.
His fourth day was given him to relish his great mission. There will be a wooden statue of him, Umanga, put up in his native place. Among other wooden gods. Near Astragor, the Supreme God of the Atlantes. He will be likened to Evenor, no, to Poseidon, Zeus!
Umanga will be admitted. He will be among them. The destinies of the coming generations will be dependent on him who has become one of the gods or heroes (in Atlantis these categories equaled). Him – a hero-god! Sacrifices will be made to him! Which name will he be given as a saint – Atlantis? Garidon? Astromanga?
7
She was found dirty, blubbered, daggled with blood. Kayumba was unable to speak. At first nobody paid attention to this event. Many strange things were happening since this war started. The Atlantes were terrified – the staffs in the hands of the iron alien warriors could turn every living thing they met on their way into metal. The militant, brave Atlantes, free from fear who had dreamt of conquering all the lands of the Middle sea were frightened. They were frightened of aliens for the first time. Some of them thought that the black warriors were just people dressed in impenetrable armour, others took them for creatures from another planet. Anyway, their weapon had unprecedented power. The bravest, courageous Atlantean warriors who stood up to defend their tribe were already rusting in the most diverse parts of Atlantis. Their sight reminded that soon, very soon everything living would become dead. Without bloodsheds, without resistance, without groans.
Kayumba was found absolutely exhausted. She could not answer a single question. Nobody gave it a thought. Kayumba’s lost look from under her matted hair seemed absent, devoid of will. Her face was pale, maybe because she had lost a lot of blood – her right palm had a deep wound that she was hiding clenching her hand into a fist. She was carried home.
Wailing and groaning grandmother Maganda washed off the dirt and blood… Then she immediately started making a rare healing remedy made with ambrosia, a wonder-working sea flower, and outlandish herbs. Wise Maganda knew recipes that could bring the weak their lost force back, she could charm warriors’ wounds and she could also give eternal life. The latter could not be asked for and told about but almost all the Atlantes knew about it.
She washed off her dirt and blood… At first nobody gave it a thought. But then …
8
Once the gods divided the Atlantean land by lot into possessions – some got larger ones, others got smaller ones and thus they identified places for the sanctuary and sacrifices.
Sacrifices will be offered to him, Astromanga. He will become a hero-god… he will also have his own possession, his sanctuary. The most beautiful girls of Atlantis will worship him, bring gifts to his feet. His name may be given to a town or a new star …
In the darkness Umanga stumbled on the liana cut off by Kayumba. How petty women still are! How can I explain the Great Intent to her? She would just enjoy baking pones, playing with children and making skirts from the animal skins brought by him, Umanga. Her thoughts are petty. That is why there is not a single female statue among those of gods-heroes!
However, he was worried about Kayumba. Here, in the pit, having discarded earthly thoughts Umanga started hearing something else, something inaccessible for the ear.
9
It could happen to anybody. But it happened to him, to Damir. He was chosen among the weak, the offended, the deprived. Astrodon’s younger son, Damir, had yielded precedence to his brother long ago. He had stopped competing with him, taking part in competitions. What was the point in going next to the Best? To be reputed the Worst? Better None but not the Worst!
He was chosen by the aliens. No, they did not talk with him. Without knowing the language, without any access to the fortress – that exceeded their ability.
But they could do another thing – it was Damir’s dreams. His dreams where he saw himself as the Great Chief. They penetrated into the night kingdom, they started controlling him, manipulating him.
There was only one word impressed upon Damir: “Kill”.
10
The tribe practiced Initiation. A warrior would dig a grave for himself, lie into it, he would be earthed for a day and night with only a tube coming out to the surface left for him to breathe.
The warrior gave the earth his past forgetting the unnecessary things. Into his future he took only the things he wanted to take himself.
Although Umanga had been through Initiation two years before when he was twelve, here in the pit, in the underground gripe, the sensations experienced then revealed themselves clearly and freshly. It was then that he started thinking about the Great Intent. Freeing his thoughts from everything petty, worthless, temporary.
But today after sitting for almost four days in the grave-pit he was giving the earth his thoughts about the Great Intent that were holy for him. He did not want to give them away, these thoughts were leaving themselves ousted by another thought that was engrossing him: anxiety for Kayumba.
As ill luck would have it, her little falcon kept coming to him. To be more precise, to the pit rather than to him. He would circle and fly away. Why?
11
“You are accused of murder but first of treachery!”
It took Kayumba some time to understand were she was and what was happening. Her hands and legs were tied up. In front of the whole tribe Damir, the younger son of the Great Chief accused her of the crime that was extrajudicially punishable by death according to the laws of Atlantis. Everything that was going on rather reminded of some cruel slaughter. But why of her? What did she, Kayumba, have to do with it?
“What can you say in your defense?”
Kayumba recovered herself:
“What am I accused of?”
“The Great Chief has been killed. He has been killed with your knife.”
“It can’t be true…”
It was impossible to say what had struck her the most – the death of the Great Chief, the father of her best friend, or the charge with murder. Her face was distorted with pain. She caught her breath. The first thing she managed to say after fighting down her feelings was:
“I did not kill him.”
“What can you say in your defense? Where were you yesterday morning?”
Kayumba was silent. Pressing her lips, raising her chin. She could not betray Umanga, she dared not pronounce his name.
“There is no point in keeping silence. We’ve got the proof. Whether you will keep silent or speak, we will show you in your true colours, anyway.”
Kayumba was silent. Damir did not like her obstinacy.
“The Great Chief was killed with your knife. The dormitive for the guards – whose work is that? Well? On the scene of the crime there are footprints of a small foot, like yours. It will be quite easy to compare them. Besides, you were seen daggled with blood. You know that any, even indirect implication in such a crime is punished with death.”
“I’m innocent. I … I don’t know what I am doing here. I don’t know what you are doing here. Come round. Do I look like a murderer? Umanga is my best friend, I could not have killed the father of my best friend!”
“Your friend was going to be sacrificed according to the will of the Chief. You decided to avenge.”
“Why should I have left the knife?”
Damir’s face was distorted in some wacky grimace.
“That’s it – why should you have left the knife? Enough,” he put on an impregnable air. “I repeat: any, even indirect implication in such a crime is punished with death. You have your last word.”
Kayumba looked around as if wishing to find rescue in the people’s faces. But she could see only a grudging reproach in their eyes. Then she looked up. She wanted to see her home, Atlantis. She needed the love of this land now. Her look stopped at the palace.
It was towering on the place where there used to be the home of the god and their ancestors. Each generation had been decorating it making efforts to outmatch the previous generation until finally a building striking by its size and beauty was created. There was a wide and long canal going from the sea to the outside water ring, one of those circling the building as if built with compasses. In the very center of the palace one could see a temple surrounded with a golden wall. It was richly decorated with gold, silver, ivory. It was there that Kayumba for the first time saw the golden statue of God on a chariot managing six winged horses. There were one hundred water-nymphs on dolphins around it…
Now looking at all this splendour from the outside she was to say her last word…
Still failing to believe what was going on Kayumba gathered up her courage and addressed the people:
“I’m innocent. Condemning me you release the criminal who will destroy the whole tribe. I know where we can hide from the aliens! In the very heart of Atlantis there is a secret passage! I’ll show you the way!”
Seeing the people’s faces change Damir suddenly stepped forward:
“This is a lie, deceit. A conspiracy. Don’t listen to her!” He waved his hand in the direction of Kayumba. “This is a trap. It’s amazing how a person who has committed treachery can commit it twice, three, four times… This is another proof of her implication in the crime.”
Damir was watching attentively the reaction his words caused. Kayumba flared up:
“You can check…”
Damir sneered:
“What does the secret passage have to do with it? These are legends of Atlantis, its fairy-tales. You may also say you know how to find secret writings, underground libraries, old charms and miraculous objects. You were told that and you believed it. Do you want to take the people away from the aliens? And why don’t we do it the other way round – you will take the aliens away from the people?”
Kayumba was silent. Damir rejoiced:
“Now I’ve found the volunteer!”
“But this is imminent death!” somebody’s alarmed voice came from the crowd.
“Gods will save her if she is innocent!” somebody nearby said in a cynical half-whisper.
“You’ve got a chance to redeem your fault, your terrible crime,” Damir raised his unusual wide belt over his head. “Choose, Kayumba: disgrace or a feat, death or a face-to-face meeting with the aliens. They are sure to come to the magnet call of this belt.”
“Do I have to take away the aliens after me? But I’m not a warrior Why me?”
12
“There is no Umanga any more! He is not here! He will be thrown down from the rock in the morning! But I am here! Now I’m the Best!”
These words awakened Umanga. But his dream had rather resembled some doze. But not a night, airy doze as it should be but rather a restless, clammy, not deep one. The voice speaking there, on the surface, though nervous and snappish was easily recognizable for Umanga: it was the voice of his younger brother, Damir.
“Son, you’d rather help me get him out of the pit!” it was the voice of the Great Chief, Astradon. If a warrior was elected the Great Chief, he received a new name, assonant with the name of the Supreme God Astragor.
“Umanga has died! There is no Umanga! You’ve got only me, father, only me – Damir!”
“What does he mean – has died?” resented Umanga to himself but suddenly he heard the sounds of a fight. It was easy for the Great Chief to defeat his younger son Damir. But any strong and powerful person if he does not want to kill will appear to be weaker than the one who is willing to kill. He will not snatch a sword, a knife. While the other, the killing one will. He will just try to stop the attacker with a word. And Umanga heard that word. The last word of the Great Chief was:
“Dami-i-i-i…”
Something heavy fell down into Umanga’s pit.
13
The guards brought her onto an open place of Pongogu plain that was considered to be the most beautiful and fertile one. They untied her binds and left her there beyond the walls of the fortress face to face with the enemies. Even at that moment one could feel each blade of Pongogu breathing with life, giving light and warmth.
Begirt with a wide magic belt, in full war paint the twelve-your-old maid reminded of a victim rather than a female warrior taking the warpath. After the Initiation rite her hair was cut short, her whole body was painted red. They didn’t spare even the rare shellfish whose shells were used to make rare purple half-tints. It seemed from a distance that it was a young man whose legs and arms had red clothes on while his shoulders, body and face were negligently swathed in a red band.
“Why me?” Kayumba kept asking herself, “I’m not capable of feats, not for the sake of duty and not even for the sake of life.”
She closed her eyes. For some reason she remembered Umanga’s arms. Not his eyes, not his hair – his arms, sturdy, strong, ready to help at any moment. She appealed to them. She appealed to rescue.
She remembered the prophecy – “the boy whose hand you will kiss is the best”.
She once chose Umanga out of many feeling some impulse in her hear – “he is the best”. A gift should not be saved, it should be given away lest it should lose its force.
Nobody understood or even guessed why Umanga was the best among the best… Her blessing opened him the way to victory in all contests. He was praised, pointed at as an example. He was the leading light. The mark that made him this kind of a man stayed invisible for everybody. Nobody knew about the prophecy.
Umanga would stretch a bow with his hand in such a way that the bowstring would groan loudly. This hand put on the first armour of a warrior who promised to become Great. With this hand he tousled the mane of the pearly clipper that was given to him for his victory in the first contests when the clipper was yet a colt.
14
When some object fell into his pit, Umanga realized by touch that it was a helmet, a helmet with feathers like the one all top rank warriors had. But he didn’t understand at once whose helmet it was. It was only later when the Moon’s brazen light threw its first ray into the deep pit that Umanga saw that it was the helmet of the Great Chief.
“Father, where are you? I’m here, I’m alive. Answer me!”
He put on the helmet and tried to throw the liana up there, to the surface to get out. To help his father. To help his tribe. To help Kayumba.
15
“The best among the best, now where are you?” Kayumba opened her eyes hearing some unclear skirr.
She had never yet seen the aliens so closely. Ugly, disproportionate, short … One half of their face seemed human and the other one – beast. Long flat plaits were hanging down their egglike heads.
Twenty-thirty steps separated her from the horde approaching her like an automat, a zombie. The aliens were almost synchronously hitting the ground with their staffs. The heavy sound was frightening. Even the ground seemed to shudder at each massive hit.
“I must run, run away from them.”
Kayumba darted at an unprecedented speed. Her slim legs carried her like a flock on the soft grass. She ran as fast as she could. The belt was a bit interfering but she would not be able to take it off even if she wanted to. But the surprising thing was that she felt the belt raising her a little above the ground. She ran hardly touching the ground with her feet.
Leaving the plain behind Kayumba started climbing as easily as a cat the slope of Amper mountain. She was afraid of even looking back. She moved unerringly, clearly, fast. It took some time to climb the mountain. She was lucky, she almost immediately found the slot-cave that Umanga had told her about. There could be no mistake – its profile reminded of a heart, the top was close at hand, beneath there was a waterfall.
Kayumba stood motionless for a second not daring enter it. What if there is death there? But it may still be rescue. There was one step between her an the Unknown. Saying goodbye she looked at the Sun:
“Save me!”
16
“You should think how to live rather than how to die”, answered the Sun.
17
Umanga could not know what had happened. The drums fell silent strangely. One could not hear any stone-mortars protecting the rampart. It became suspiciously quiet and then there appeared some growing unclear rhythmical rumble. With some supreme instinct that is given to Initiated Warriors Umanga understood how necessary he was there, on the surface.
He started rushing about the pit, unable any longer to wait quietly, peacefully. Trying to grip at the earthen walls with his fingers he started straining up like a caught beast out of the trap but the pit as if mocking at him swallowed Umanga again and again.
“Somebody! Somebody, help me! Do you hear me? I need to get out of here Guards! Now where are you? P-eo-p-le!!!”
It seemed that his scream was to tear silence many kilometers around. But it just seemed so. His appeal was heard only by the falcon. It came, sat for some time on the edge of the pit, turned his head several times and flew away into the sky without looking back.
“What shall I do? They have forgotten about me …” whispered Umanga. “If they don’t take me to the precipice how will I become a hero?”
18
At the entrance to the ravine there was a statue made from black and white onyx. It was a guard sitting on the throne and armed with a spear. It was this guard that Umanga spoke about: “it will kill anybody who will stand in front of him at least for a second”. Kayumba darted like an arrow past the statue into the depth of the ravine hearing a dull sound behind her. Unaware of it she left a red print of her palm on the wall without noticing that there were a lot of them there… “I should say – I saw stars… Thunder and lightning – this is what I would say.” And then she felt protected. No, not just protected – she felt armed at all points as if Zeus himself came to her defense.
“Now, come to me! Come!” she shouted to the aliens.
She pulled out her knife and took a defense position.
“Come!”
Her shout echoed over the mountains and the plain and struck against the walls of the fortress:
“Come!!!”
19
The aliens were crowding at the entrance to the ravine, they could not follow Kayumba. The striking force of the guard was too strong. The fire flung by the guard melted their staffs and they died.
But they did not want to retreat; therefore coming over the top crowds of the aliens started filling the niche inside the mountain that was formed after a volcano eruption. But once they stepped there, they were unable to tear their feet off the ground. Some unknown force attracted them like magnet attracts iron. How many were they: hundreds, thousands? They were beating heavily with their staffs. Either under their weight or from the sound of their staffs the Earth crust could not hold it any longer and fractured. The most powerful magnet – the magnet of the earth – started sucking them down like insects into its crater, the crater of an old volcano. Within a moment the island sank and started going down. The terra firma started slowly going under the water sweeping everything out of its interior.
As to Kayumba with her magic belt, the ravine pushed her out with the force with which one magnet can repel another one. She was not just thrown up, she was spat out somewhere into space like a sedative ball out of the tube. Following her up went a huge fire dragon…
Kayumba was flying. Like a bird, a strong, independent, carefree bird. Yes, there were stone beneath her, yes, she was already about to fall on them. But she was flying as if wings had grown behind her…
20
Umanga was thrown into the air by a powerful fountain, a warm geyser that blew from under the ground. He was flying like a bird, a strong, independent, carefree bird. Yes, there stayed the pit beneath him that was quickly filling with water, yes, Umanga was already about to fall into the water. But for some reason he was flying as if he had wings, strong, flexible, light.
21
It was not enough for Damir to be sitting on the throne. His father’s death and his brother’s perish were not enough for him. He raged feeling fear that he might also be killed now by somebody like the Great Chief. Something was wrong with Atlantis, the ground was swaying under the feet like mad. People were rushing around screaming with terror. But Damir was occupied with one thought only – how to keep his power over the people once he got it. And maybe even more – to conquer the world enslaving the aliens.
And then he understood that everything he needed for one thing was the staff, one iron staff of an alien. He will be able to protect himself with it, to order, to execute with it and to pardon with it.
He liked this thought so much that he immediately decided to go beyond the walls of the fortress, to the place from which Kayumba had just run taking away the horde. He hoped that somebody might have lost the staff in the throng.
Damir was lucky – one of the staffs was sticking out of the ground. It was the place where te guards had left Kayumba. He hurried towards it fearing that someone might overtake him. His sagum streamed in the wind like a black squamate hump; therefore from afar damir looked like a huge two-legged pangolin following its prey.
The last thing Damir saw was his right hand touching the staff starting turning into iron.
Another second and there was nothing left of him except the monument to the ravenous, lazy ruler who had ascended the throne for one day.
22
When the flight was over, Umanga got into the very whirlpool that started now pulling him down, now pushing him back. He was still holding onto the iron helmet with his hands, although in the flooding water flow the helmet was more and more losing its property of pushing him to the top. At any second it could inevitably pull him to the bottom. However, Umanga did not want to part with his father’s helmet because being in his way it simultaneously helped him to stay afloat. He had to dabble with his legs as best as he could.
Suddenly he came across some log in the water, to be more exact a large chunk of wood.
“Come! A bit closer, now …”
He started pulling the wooden thing towards himself gripping it as if he were gripping a galloping horse. The moment he managed to mount it, swimming with the heavy helmet became much easier. To feel more secure he put it on his head.
Hardly had he recovered his breath when he understood that the wooden chuck he was holding to was not a log. It was the statue of the Supreme God Astragor:
“Oh, my god!”
Terrified by his own blasphemy he pushed the wooden idol away but the heavy helmet immediately pulled him to the bottom. He had to tumble about for some time before he managed again to grip the idol like ring-buoy.
So, what had happened? At the moment Umanga could definitely say only one thing: there was water, water, water all around. Was there anything else? Anybody else?
Suddenly he heard some noise nearby. The little falcon was circling above him and calling him somewhere in panic.
23
“Hold on, Umanga! Take my hand! Oh, how heavy you are!”
Kayumba was pulling him with all her might onto her funny little floating island. “I’ve come to pick him up, I am not late. Nobody dared touch him.”
“What has happened? What’s wrong with you, Kayumba? Why is there blood on you? Are you wounded?”
“No. I’ll tell you later.”
“What’s that belt on you? This is war paint! Did you fight?”
He looked at her with surprised eyes unaware how this change had happened – from a huntress-mad into a noble warrior. Wiping either paint or tears of her face Kayumba answered:
“I didn’t. But I wanted to.”
“That’s strange. It’s written on your shoulder. Here,” he dabbed at her with his finger.
“I was painted before … Before all the ground collapsed. And you, how did you get out of the pit?”
“It was the pit that got out of me. Let’s sail away from here, Kayumba!”
“Let’s sail, Umanga!”
24
It was hard to believe that not so much time passed from the day he was put into the pit to the day with Kayuma on the floating island. Not more than five or six days. O many things happened over that time. Things the significance of which could not be compared to anything. Death of the father, destruction of the continent, collapse of the aliens. It was hard to enumerate these events comma separated. There was an epoch behind each of them. There is an overall change behind each of them. Umanga was to think about each of them and remember till his very last day.
He became different. He could not help remembering what he was like when he got into the pit. How important it was for him (the other one, the former one) to be considered a hero and to stand in the row of wooden idols among similar heroes-gods and great chiefs!
Today Umanga was not sitting in the pit. He was sitting on the flowing island. The same limited space, the same forced idleness and the same forced occupation: think, thinking and thinking.
But the thoughts were quite different. The wooden statue of his god Astragor was sailing next to him. Umanga did not lose his former respect to him. No! Astragor will always be the God for him. The Supreme God. But it appears that the God left him, Ugnada, the right to decide many things. And today Umanga was making the decision in favour of life rather than of death.
He will not stand as a wooden idol. He will just live. He will live for the woman that was always next to him – both in the pit and on the floating island. He will live for the woman who had done so much to save him, had done so much for him to understand the main thing: “to live not for the sake of something but for that sake of somebody”. For the sake of the woman for whom he was ready not only to die. He has grown up. He has become ready to live for her sake. And to bring the life of their future children into the future. To protect them, to raise the, to help them to grow and not only physically. Grow in their understanding how life is organized, what is really valuable in it, really significant.
25
Nobody knows how long they sailed. The little falcon helped them to get food. The helmet helped them to gather rain water.
But when they saw a strip of the shore – green, warm, huge – Umanga understood that he had long been sailing there in his dreams, sailing with Kayumba. His heart had been calling him there. His heart that proved to be stronger, cleverer, mightier than the sword and the spear that Umanga had respected so much. Ahead of them there were the saving tops of the mountains. They will be together there for many hundreds of years. There will be a new tribe born: his and hers. The tribe of descendants of the Great Chief. Descendants of the Great Nation.
The unknown shore was getting closer.