“Also, I don’t like other people making plans for me. I do what I want.”
“And you want to be ordinary,” said Inzara. He stood up and stretched. Hu! He was enormous! His fur gleamed in the firelight. So did his jewelry. “Will you take me across the river?”
“Why do you want to go?”
“The hairless people have built a village south of here on the Long Lake. I want to see it.”
“Why? You won’t be able to go into it.”
“Will the hairless people drive me out?”
Nia thought for a moment. “No.”
“I can endure people. Look at me now. I’ve been sitting and talking with you, and it isn’t the time for mating. If the village looks interesting, maybe I’ll go in. Ara wants information. I am the one who gets along with people, so I am the one who came. But he’s the one who’s curious.”
They ate the groundbird. Inzara took a blanket and went around the house. He slept on the ground next to his animal. Nia slept inside. She dreamt about the village of the hairless people. She was in it, wandering among the big round pale houses. Inzara was there, and other people she did not recognize. Some of them were real people, people with fur. Others were like Li-sa and Deragu.
In the morning she took Inzara across the river. “There is no good trail along the river. You will have to go west onto the plain and then south.”
He made the gesture that meant he understood.
She went back to the house of Tanajin.
More days went by. There was a lot of rain. Leaves fell. The sun moved into the south. When it was visible, it had the pale look of winter. It was growing hungry, the old women used to say, though that made no sense to Nia. The sun was a buckle. Everyone knew that. The Mistress of the Forge had made it and given it to the Spirit of the Sky. He wore it on his belt. How could a buckle grow hungry?
There was no one to answer her question.
A group of travelers came out of the west: Amber Women, returning home. They were quiet and they looked perturbed. Nia did not ask why. She ferried them. They gave her a blanket made of spotted fur and a pot made of tin.
The weather kept getting colder. There was ice in the marshes now. It was thin and delicate, present in the early morning and gone by noon. If she touched it, it broke. Aiya! It was like the drinking cups of the hairless people or their strange square hollow pieces of ice.
The sun moved farther into the south. The sky was low and gray. One morning she heard thunder, but saw nothing.
Another island, she thought. Going up or coming down. How many were in the lake now? Where did they go when they left?
Inzara returned. He built a fire. She went and got him.
“I couldn’t do it. I saw their boats and their wagons. I knew my brother would want to know more. But I wasn’t able to force myself to go in. Even after the man without hair invited me.”
Nia made the gesture of inquiry.
“The one I met before. Deragu. He found me on the bluff above the village. We talked. He said other people—real people—had come and looked at the village, but not come in. Not many. Three or maybe four. He asked me to give you a message.”
“Yes?”
“Come to the village for the winter. You gave many gifts to the hairless people, he said, especially to him and Li-sa. They have given you little. This makes them uncomfortable, he said. A wagon will not move in a straight line if the bowhorns that pull it are not properly matched. A bow will not shoot in a straight line if the two arms are not of an equal length.”
Nia frowned. “I don’t remember that I gave them anything important.”
Inzara made the gesture that meant “that may be.” “An exchange is not completed until everyone agrees that it is completed. It’s hard to say which kind of person causes more trouble—one who refuses to give or one who refuses to take.”
Nia said nothing.
Inzara went on. “I mated one year with a woman who did not like taking. It almost drove me crazy. Everything I gave her was ‘too much’ or ‘too lovely’ or ‘too good’ for her. As for her gifts, which were just fine, she said, they were ‘small’ and ‘ugly.’ I wanted to hit her. I got away from her as quickly as possible.”
Nia grunted.
Inzara said, “I knew the woman’s mother. She had eyes like needles and a tongue like a knife. Nothing was ever good enough for her. I think the woman learned to apologize for everything she did. Hu! What an ugly habit!”
They reached the eastern shore of the river. Inzara helped her pull the raft up onto land. He took off his necklace of gold and amber and held it out. Nia thought of saying it was too much to give in exchange for a river crossing. But Inzara looked edgy, and she didn’t want to argue with him. She took the necklace.
He mounted his animal and gathered the reins. He looked down at Nia. “I used to think that nothing frightened me except old age. But the village back there frightened me.” He waved toward the west and south. “I’m angry with myself and restless. I’d better get going.” He tugged on the reins. The animal turned. Inzara glanced back. “Maybe I will come again in the spring. Or maybe Ara will come. The village won’t frighten him. And Tzoon is like a rock. Nothing ever bothers him.”
He rode off. Nia put the necklace on. It was fine work. The amber was shaped into round beads, and the fish was made of tiny pieces of gold, fastened together. It wiggled like a real fish.
She walked back to camp.
The next day snow felclass="underline" large, soft flakes that melted as soon as they touched the ground. She packed her belongings and cleaned the house. She left a bag of dried food hanging from the roof pole. People might come. They might be hungry. She left a cooking pot, a jug for water, and a knife.
After that she took a good look at the bowhorns. Their hooves were healthy. There were no sores on their backs. They walked without favoring any foot or leg. Their eyes were clear. So were their nostrils. She found no evidence of worms or digging bugs.
Nia made the gesture of satisfaction.
Her hands were not entirely empty. She had three animals and food and the metal-working tools, which Tanajin had left. It was more than she had taken from the village of the Copper People. More than she had taken from her own village when she left the first time or the second time or the third.
The next day she crossed the river. She had to make two trips. The first one was easy. The air was still. The sky was low and gray, but nothing came out of it. She took two of the bowhorns and tied them on the western shore, then went back.
She loaded the rest of her belongings and led the third bowhorn onto the raft. It snorted and stamped a foot.
“Be patient! Be easy! The others gave me no trouble.”
She pushed off. Snow began to fall. The flakes were big and soft. They drifted down slowly. By the time she reached the first island the eastern shore was gone, hidden by whiteness. She crossed the island and loaded everything onto the second raft.
The snow was staying this time, sticking to bare branches, sticking to the gear the bowhorn carried: the bags and blankets. There was snow on Nia’s shoulders and snow on the rough bark of the logs that made up the raft. All around her flakes of snow touched the gray surface of the river and vanished.
Aiya! The whiteness! It hid the island she had just left, and she could not see the island that was her destination. Nia swung the paddle and grunted.
They landed at the far southern end of the island. Nia pulled the raft up on land, then looked at it. She ought to bring it upriver to the proper landing place. But that would take time, and the storm was getting worse.
“Let others deal with this problem,” she said.
She led her animal across the island to the final raft.