By G.R. Nanda
“The new ones!” shouted a furious man with a hard face and long scraggly black hair. Nickel recognized him as Li, the man who had led the pack that had carried him to Elder Hawk.
“Didn’t come in with the rest of us did you?” growled Li. He edged along the side of Elder Hawk’s hut from the right. “We don’t have the time to wait for you! You better learn that quickly!” He was crouched and marching slowly in a careful, tense and tentative manner.
Nickel and Farrul had ventured beyond Elder Hawk’s hut and into a deserted square, but they were impelled by the thick wind storm and fog to rush back to the hut, to the side adjacent to the long side entrance they had stood by before.
“We had to talk,” said Nickel. Knowing that was an insufficient explanation, he added, “- about some important- stuff.” He knew it was still insufficient. Li’s reply let him know that he thought so too.
“What?” said Li, wearing an incredulous expression; his eyes were scrunched and his mouth was wide. He frowned and hardened his mouth again. “This isn’t the Past World anymore. No flying metal box to save your skins in a windstorm.” Li moved in closer until his face was mere inches from Nickel’s. For a brief moment, Li’s nostrils emitted heat onto Nickel’s skin, even in the midst of a windstorm.
“You-are-here, with no other than the Atlantic Tribe. Everyone here lies and breathes the way of the Hawk. There is no one else here other than you who does not live the way of the Hawk. We are the Hawk! If you want to live with us, you must live the way of the Hawk or else die like the rest of our failed children!”
Farrul had been standing against the wall behind Nickel, his body facing the wall while he stared just past his shoulder at Nickel. Nickel turned around, squinting so the wind wouldn’t sear his eyeballs. Farrul was still the same.
Turning back around, Nickel saw Li in the same position.
“So- whaddeeeya wann’ us to do?” Nickel quickly said. It was proving difficult to communicate with the members of the Atlantic Tribe. Nickel felt himself to be at a helpless loss when it came to effectively interacting with its members. He was always at odds in some way.
“It’s what you should have done!” shouted Li, jabbing a finger in the air. “I should not be here!”
“Look,” started Nickel. He already felt like whatever he was going to say would be dismissed and possibly berated by Li. “Farrul came here with three different escorts. Elder Hawk told me they were supposed to stay with him, keep lookout. Elder hawk went inside her hut because she got so upset. But she wasn’t supposed to.”
“What-are-you-saying?” said Li.
“I’m saying…………..,” said Nickel. He dreaded Li’s reaction, so he tentatively said, “it’s………………………………..not really………………………..our- fault?”
Li fumed and his scowl deepened. He really was not as submissive and passive as he was in front of Elder Hawk. Nickel could tell it was a front for Elder Hawk’s sake and that Li was probably the opposite of passive most of the time.
“The thing you really should understand about the Atlantic Tribe,” said Li in a low voice that frothed with fury, “is that its people wait for no one!”
“Elder Hawk will leave you! Expect that! Expect that when you don’t listen!”
“Time is very precious here. The worldly gas and its windstorms make it so. Noone can spare time wasting it on you!”
With that, Li grabbed both of them violently, first Nickel, squeezing his arms around Nickel’s torso, then lunging for Farrul’s.
“Don’t fight it!” said Li. Nickel could now not only see, but feel how large and bulky Li was. He was certainly not inclined to fight Li.
He somehow (startlingly) dragged Nickel and Farrul by both sides of his torso through the raging winds. All the while, he simultaneously maintained a rigid posture and rigid manner of marching.
Nickel’s body was whipped by the wind and his eyes stayed closed until he heard Li growl and kick open a door. When he opened his eyes, Nickel was thrown through the doorway, soaring across the room and quickly slamming on the floor.
He moaned, winced and closed his eyes as the hard grimy floor sent waves of pain crashing through his body. He lay cowering while his limbs were splayed outside of his tucked head.
Farrul and Li were both growling over each other and pounding thumps were audible from behind. It seemed like Farrul and Li were wrestling each other.
Finally, Farrul yelped and he was heard smacking the rock floor beside Nickel at his right, whimpering in pain.
“Li!” shouted a woman. “Why so rough on the visitors?’
“Visitors?” growled Li. Nickel opened his eyes a crack and looked up slightly.
Li’s feet moved around Nickel and towards petite feet in the distance that backed away at Li’s advance. “You think Past Worlders decided to stop by for a visit? You think they want to catch up with us? See how we’ve been doing?”
Li’s feet stopped a few feet ahead of Nickel.
“They’re from the Past World! You want them to infect us with their ways?”
“Who do you think they are?” wailed the same woman. Her feet reappeared in between Li’s large legs, moving closer amidst a swaying red dress. “Look at them! They’re just manlings! Kids!”
“You think that’ll make me soften up to them?” said Li. He stepped closer to the woman, who didn’t back away at his advance. Nickel looked up, lifting his neck. He saw women and adolescent girls and boys in dark clothes lined with feathers, wearing grim faces and surrounding Li who was stooped over the woman. “We don’t hold our manlings to pampering. So why for manlings from the Past World?”
The woman inched closer; her small frame was concealed by Li, but her shins and feet were visible.
“They don’t know our ways,” she said. “They’ve just arrived.”
“No, no, no, no,” said Li, shaking his shaggy head and his hands. “You don’t see. They are different from our own children. Okay? They haven’t known our rigor since birth like- our children. They came from a large vehicle! Large metal boxes’re probably all they’ve ever known! They won’t fit into the tribe if we aren’t hard on them.”
A disgusted looking woman with long dreadlocks stepped up to Li from the right.
“Li!” she shouted. “Did you forget that you’re descended from Past Worlders, just like these two boys?” She scoffed at Li and waved her left arm across the room before returning it to her hips alongside her right arm. “We all come from Past Worlders!”
People moved in around Li and shouted furious affirmations.
“Layla’s right!”
“Just quit it, Li!”
Others sulked behind, looking concerned at the brewing tension.
“So, I don’t know what it is that you’re trying to get out of these boys!” said Layla, the woman with dreadlocks.
Some people moved besides Li and shouted back at his resisters.
“Nah! He’s right!”
“Yeah, shut up!”
“This tribe hasn’t lived for so long because we were nice!”
We weeded out the weak and if the Past Worlders are weak, then we weed them out too!”
Nickel sat up and crawled away on his back as the whole room broke into a fervor of discord and shouting. Farrul was still lying down, crumpled.
A group of young and older females had herded together besides Layla and the first woman who had argued with Li.
Some young males and teenage boys touting red feathers around their torso, across their backs and chests, jeered at them while they stood around Li.
Other women and teenage boys and girls surrounded the two groups and tried wedging themselves in between them. Some appeared to be arguing just as loudly while others seemed to be frantically attempting to pacify the crowd.
All of their voices became warbled and difficult to completely decipher in the volume and fervor. Soon, Farrul peeked up from the floor, still lying down. Nickel and Farrul could only watch as the Atlantic tribespeople argued over their existence.
There was a boom from behind and the door slammed Nickel’s left leg, sending him sprawling in pain into the right corner of the room. Nickel’s body smashed a dusty stone pot. A large brown and red blur swept through the entrance and out of the blur, long red feathered legs kicked out, hitting Farrul at the side of his head. Nickel immediately inched away from the brown shards that now lined the corner and the right wall.
The feathered legs planted themselves on the ground and the person’s large wings extended horizontally. The knees were bent. As soon as the man had gained a still and balanced footing, the knees extended fully.
Everyone was quiet and still. Nickel’s heart was pounding rapidly and his body still throbbed. Everyone gazed at the entranceway with a solemn reverence.
He-Hawk had arrived.
“Even for the noisiest hut in the tribe, this hut got pretty damn noisy tonight,” said He-Hawk in a deep low and cool voice. When no one replied, he asked, “what seems to be the problem that’s got everyone so riled up?” He-Hawk slowly lowered his arms and the span of his feathered wings contracted until they only fully extended downwards from his shoulders.
He looked at Farrul and Nickel, turning his neck and glancing at them with small curious eyes. The edge of his raised right eyebrow peeked out from his rust red mask, while his left eyebrow frowned deeply into his left eye. His mouth was small and tightly puckered. His chin and jaw were large, but aquiline– hooked.
His right eyebrow returned to his eye and he turned around to face Nickel and Farrul. Torchlight shone on top of his mask that covered his scalp and cranium. The torchlight also brightened the feathers around He-Hawk’s shoulders. Their bright red danced around his shoulders like trickling, dancing blood.
“Ah,” he said, nodding. He turned back to the crown. “Are these two the source of our scuffle?”
“We don’t know what to do with them,” said a thin dark brown girl who came out from the back of the room. “And they’re all arguing about how to treat them”
“Treat them the way Li wants to treat them,” she added, nodding towards Li, who was behind her looking flustered.
“Ky,” said Li, holding out his palms and walking towards He-Hawk. “I’m only trying to be safe. They’re from the Past World and if we don’t force them into our culture- if we’re not harsh with them, they could disturb our culture.”
“Remember, our tribe’s done a lot to keep the Past World out of life.”
“Li, how did you treat these Past Worlders?” asked He-Hawk, or Ky.
“Well,” said Li, “they were outside bumbling when it was storming and everyone else was inside, so I was sent to bring them to a teen clinic hut. When I saw them bumbling around, I dragged them here and threw them across-.” Li’s voice faltered and his face dimmed as if he was stalling the realized harshness of the subsequent detail in his narration. “ -The floor.”
“But I don’t care,” said Li, frowning at He-Hawk. “And that’s only a little taste of what I’m willing to put him through!” He edged closer to He-Hawk, who stood still, breathing heavily in the aftermath of his flight to this hut. “If we want to keep these two here-.” He pointed in Farrul and Nickel’s direction. “ -We have to beat the Past World out of them. We should give them hell whenever they can’t act in accordance with the Atlantic Tribe!”
“Li, this is why you were never made He-Hawk!” shouted Layla. “Because you don’t know how to care for people.”
Li didn’t respond or look at Layla. He didn’t even move. All he did was stare at He-Hawk with a determined face.
“Don’t you see?” asked Li in a lower voice than before. “This is how it starts. It’s not visions of Hedonim that’ll undo us. That won’t take us back to the Past World. It’s this that will. Them,” he said, pointing in Farrul’s and Nickel’s direction again.
“Listen to me,” started He-Hawk, raising a palm, but Li cut him off.
“People from the Past World! That will break the tribe!”
People behind began shouting again, arguing with Li as well as affirming what he was saying.
“This had happened before!” shouted He-Hawk. “Quiet down! Have you all forgotten? Stop getting so emotional about this! Remember and think! If you all stop shouting and cool your angry minds, you can remember- a precedent!”
“And what would that be?” asked a stout teenage boy with a mop of brown hair and olive skin from the left side of the room.
“Charles Norwood,” He-Hawk said slowly. There was a period of hushed silence lasting mere seconds followed by the utterance of gasps and unbelieving mutters.
“What?” said the thin girl.
Li’s face was dumbfounded.
“That old grandpa?”
“The reason!-” started He-Hawk in a loud voice attempting to silence the distracted crowd and summon their attention, “ -you don’t remember Charles Norwwod coming from the Past World is because early on, when he happened upon our land as a young man, his spirit left the Past World. It left because the Atlantic Tribe taught him the way of the Hawk and he accepted Great Father Hawk.”
“He passed through the tests laid out for transitioning his soul out of the Past World.”
“And Li, unfortunately, it is not up to you to decide those tests.”
Li’s face became harder. His eyelids moved closer to each other and the edges of his mouth moved further down. But nonetheless, he stayed cool in front of Li. No anger bubbled out like before.
“The appropriate tests are there. Like I said, there is a precedent. No need to create new tests.”
“Our Past Worlders here,” said He-Hawk, gesturing with his right hand at Farrul and Nickel, “are to undergo two different initiation rites, one is a birthing ceremony and the other is an acht-chi test of convergence. Nickel -.” He turned and pointed directly at Nickel, sending a jolt through him before turning back around, “ -has already completed a test of convergence. This one-.” He pointed at farrul. “ -has not. The both of them have to complete their birthing ceremonies.”
“As to the older accomplice-.” Nickel’s eyes widened and his heart lurched. “ -he is too ill-bodied to be tested or inaugurated right now.” Nickel’s heart sank. He figured that this was an indication that things were not boding well for Steve’s health.
“I have just spoken to Elder Hawk and carry with me information about our Past Worlders’ fates and place in the tribe– information that might surprise you.”
Allowing a moment of silence to settle amongst curious and eager faces, He-Hawk continued,
“While the Atlantic Nest has received three new births, our new members must leave the Nest not long after their eggs have cracked.”
Nickel knew what was coming. He-Hawk had heard of his quest to Hedonim from Elder Hawk. He just knew it. The faces in front of him were stony, silent and frowning– confused by the news being delivered to them. Li looked like he was queasy.
“The Quest for Hedonim persists. The acht-chi Enchantress, or-.” He-Hawk turned his head slightly to the right in Nickel and Farrul’s direction. “ -as the Past Worlders might think of her, the Enchantress of Dreams, has finally spoken loud enough. The people in the tribe- some of them are here, before me, who have listened to the whispers of Hedonim– searched for it, have finally gotten what they’ve wanted:
A means of clear passage to Hedonim.”
There was a collective gasp drawn out of the crowd. Li’s eyes widened and his jaw fell slack, as did the many eyes and jaws around and behind him. He-Hawk didn’t speak for a while, allowing the room to digest the news and the shock that came with it. People started whispering amongst themselves.
The whispers turned into mutters and it was only when they turned into shocked and outraged shouts that He-Hawk took the reins of dialogue in the hut again:
“Hush!” He-Hawk raised his arms, drawing the feathers of his wings up and outwards from his back, making him appear as if he was a flying bird. “Do not excite yourselves! And do not fear!”
“Do not fear! Trust in Great Father Hawk and his great cosmic plan!”
A tall curly-haired boy behind Li, towards the left wall drew ragged breaths.
“This is it,” he whispered. “What we’ve been waiting for.”
“No!” shouted a square-faced woman behind him. “Past Worlders might not bring us apart, but-.” She nudged the boy away and walked right up to He-Hawk, her brown dress swishing around her stout brown legs. She stood at the right of Li, who looked at her with a numb expression. “ -this can!”
“If all of our young people go off to Hedonim, what will happen to the tribe?” she cried. “It’ll fall apart.”
“We can’t rush to conclusions,” said He-hawk.
“But can’t you see?” said the woman, shaking her head. “Hedonim is part of the Past World! Our parents and grandparents have done everything they could to draw us out and away from the Past World! Do we want to undo what they worked for?”
“I don’t want to undo what they did!” shouted some other woman.
Segments of the crowd broke into frantic shouting.
“SILENCE!” boomed He-Hawk. The whole room quieted. He-Hawk coughed and covered his mouth with his palm. He sputtered and cleared phlegm.
Outside, the winds had quieted and the walls of the hut stilled. Nickel only realized that the hut had been shuddering once it had stopped.
“A jour-,” He-Hawk said hoarsely. He cleared his throat again. “A journey to Hedonim is now available to those of our youth who are about to embark on mission quests. If our friends from the Past World choose to take up the journey, they will accompany our youth on their mission quests. As is always the case, a youth can choose to stay with the tribe or leave during his or her mission quest.”
“By creating the option to travel to Hedonim, I think the tribe will feel more secure. Our tribe has become much bigger than when it had first summoned the spirit of Great Father Hawk generations ago. We are not the small group of former Past Worlders anymore.”
“If people can go to Hedonim, we’ll lose a lot of people!” shouted a boy from the very back of the room.
“Maybe for the better!” said He-Hawk, nodding.
Li put his head in his hands and walked away to the left of the hut.
“The bigger the tribe, the harder it is to sustain ourselves. I don’t think I need to remind you of any food shortages to drive the point home.”
There were grumbles to acknowledge this.
There were also excited whispers and glowing faces full of wide eyes and grins.
“Those of you who’ve wanted to go to Hedonim– you know I can’t restrain you forever– especially when you grow in numbers.”
“So………………with the permission of Elder Hawk, I am announcing to you and soon after to the rest of the tribe…………..the pilgrimage to Hedonim in the name of Great Father Hawk!”
This was followed by more gasps, whispers and exclamations of triumph.
“Two………………mission quests will occur…………with the choice to go to Hedonim. If the two mission questers do go to Hedonim, their journey will allow more to follow in the future under the eyes of Great Father Hawk.”
The noises of excitement and unease grew louder.
“Now, as you can tell, the day has begun and night is over,” said He-Hawk. “The birthing ceremonies will be prepared today and my watch shift is over. You shall answer to She-Hawk for the next couple of hours.”
He-Hawk turned around and walked to the door.
“You know, Ky,” said Li, lifting his hands from his face and stepping past the rest of the tribespeople to face Li at the middle of the room. He-hawk cocked his right eyebrow and swivelled his neck and torso towards Li.
“I don’t know what happened to you,” said Li. I liked you better before you were He-hawk.” Li frowned. “You, from three years ago, would have been on my side today.”
“What happened to you?”
He-Hawk looked down at the floor and then turned back to the door, kicking it open and exiting the hut.
G.R. Nanda 