The Anything Box

"I took care," said Dobi. "I came not close after the first meeting. And
yet . . ." he turned the length of his thigh. From hip to knee the split flesh
glinted like the raking of a mighty claw. "I was among the trees when a kutu
screamed on the hill above me. Fire lashed out from the Strangers and it
screamed no more. Startled, I moved the branches about me and—s-s-s-s-st!" His
finger streaked beside his thigh.
"But Deci—"
Dobi scattered his dust handprint with a swirl of his fingers. "Deci is
like a scavenging mayu. He follows, hand outstretched. 'Wait, wait,' he cried
when we turned to go. 'We can lead the world with these wonders.'"
"Why should we lead the world? Now there is no first and no last. Why
should we reach beyond our brothers to grasp things that dust will claim?"
"Wail him dead, Veti," rumbled Tefu. "Death a thousand ways surrounds him
now. And if his body comes again, his heart is no longer with us. Wail him
dead."
"Yes," nodded Dobi. "Wail him dead and give thanks that our coveti is so
securely hidden that the Strangers can never come to sow among us the seeds of
more Viats and Tefus."
"The Strangers are taboo! The coveti path is closed." So Veti wailed him
dead, crouching in the dust of the coveti path, clutching in her hands the
kiom Deci had given her with his heart. Viat's mother sat with her an
hour—until Veti broke her wail and cried, "Your grief is not mine. You pinned
Viat's kiom. You folded his hands to rest. You gave him back to earth. Wail
not with me. I wail for an emptiness— for an unknowledge. For a wondering and
a fearing. You know Viat is on the trail to the Hidden Ones. But I know not of
Deci. Is he alive? Is he dying in the wilderness with no pelu to light him
into the darkness? Is he crawling now, blind and maimed up the coveti trail? I
wail a death with no hope. A hopelessness with no death. I wail alone."
And so she wailed past the point of tears, into the aching dryness of
grief. The coveti went about its doing, knowing she would live again when
grief was spent.
Then came the day when all faces swung to the head of the coveti trail. All
ears flared to the sound of Veti's scream and all eyes rounded to see Deci
stagger into the coveti.
Veti flew to him, her arms outstretched, her heart believing before her
mind could confirm. But Deci winced away from her touch and his face half
snarled as his hand, shorn of three fingers and barely beginning to
regenerate, motioned her away.
"Deci!" cried Veti, "Deci?"
"Let—let—me breathe." Deci leaned against the rocks. Deci who could outrun
a kutu, whose feet had lightness and swiftness beyond all others in the
coveti. "The trail takes the breath."
"Deci!" Veti's hands still reached, one all unknowingly proffering the
kiom. Seeing it, she laughed and cast it aside. The death mark with Deci alive
before her? "Oh, Deci!" And then she fell silent as she saw his maimed hand,
his ragged crest, his ravaged jacket, his seared legs —his eyes— His eyes!
They were not the eyes of the Deci who had gone with eagerness to see the
Strangers. He had brought the Strangers back in his eyes.
His breath at last came smoothly and he leaned to Veti, reaching as he did
so, into the bundle by his side.
"I promised," he said, seeing Veti only. "I have come again to fill your
hands with wonder and delight."
But Veti's hands were hidden behind her. Gifts from strangers are suspect.
"Here," said Deci, laying an ugly angled thing down in the dust before
Veti. "Here is death to all kutus, be they six-legged or two. Let the Durlo
coveti say again the Klori stream is theirs for fishing," he muttered.
"Nothing is theirs now save by our sufferance. I give you power, Veti."
Veti moved back a pace.
"And here," he laid a flask of glass beside the weapon. "This is for dreams
and laughter. This is what Viat drank of—but too much. They call it water. It
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is a drink the Hidden Ones could envy. One mouthful and all memory of pain andgrief, loss and unreachable dreams is gone.
"I give you forgetfulness, Veti." Veti's head moved denyingly from side toside. "And here." He pulled forth, carelessly, arms-lengths of shining fabricthat rippled and clung and caught the sun. His eyes were almost Deci's eyesagain.
Veti's heart was moved, womanwise, to the fabric and her hands reached forit, since no woman can truly see a fabric unless her fingers taste its body,flow, and texture.
"For you, for beauty. And this, that you might behold yourself untwisted bymoving waters." He laid beside the weapon and the water a square of reflectingbrightness. "For you to see yourself as Lady over the world as I see myselfLord."
Veti's hands dropped again, the fabric almost untasted. Deci's eyes againwere the eyes of a stranger.
"Deci, I waited not for things, these long days." Veti's hands cleansedthemselves together from the cling of the fabric. Her eyes failed before Deciand sought the ground, jerking away from the strange things in the dust."Come, let us attend to your hurts."
"But no! But see!" cried Deci. "With these strange things our coveti canrule all the valley and beyond and beyond!"
"Why?"
"Why?" echoed Deci. 'To take all we want. To labor no more save to ask andreceive. To have power…"
"Why?" Veti's eyes still questioned. "We have enough. We are not hungry. Weare clothed against the changing seasons. We work when work is needed. We playwhen work is done. Why do we need more?"
"Deci finds quiet ways binding," said Dobi. "Rather would he have shoutingand far, swift going. And sweat and effort and delicious fear pushing him intoaction. Soon come the kutu hunting days, Deci. Save your thirst for excitementuntil then."
"Sweat and effort and fear!" snarled Deci. "Why should I endure that whenwith this . . ." He snatched up the weapon and with one wave of his handsheared off the top of Tefu's house. He spoke into the dying thunder of thedischarge. "No kutu alive could unsheath its fangs after that, except as deathdraws back the sheath to mock its finished strength.
"And if so against a kutu," he muttered. "How much more so against theDurlo coveti?"
"Come, Deci," cried Veti. "Let us bind your wounds. As time will heal them,so time will heal your mind of these Strangers."
"I want no healing," shouted Deci, anger twisting his haggard face. "Norwill you after the Strangers have been here and proffered you their wonders inexchange for this foolish fringing devi." Contempt tossed his head. "For thedevi in our coveti, we could buy their sky craft, I doubt not."
'They will not come," said Dobi. "The way is hidden. No Stranger can everfind our coveti. We have but to wait until—"
"Until tomorrow!" Deci's crest tossed rebelliously, his voice louder thanneed be. Or perhaps it seemed so from the echoes it raised in every heart. "Itold—"
"You told?" Stupidly, the echo took words.
"You told?" Disbelief sharpened the cry.
"You told!" Anger spurted into the words.
"I told!" cried Deci. "How else reap the benefits that the Strangers—"
"Benefits!" spat Dobi, "Death!" His foot spurned the weapon in the dust."Madness!" The flask gurgled as it moved. "Vanity!" Dust clouded across themirror and streaked the shining fabric. "For such you have betrayed us todeath."