Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country Read Free

invisible spirits. He was scary.
    Thoroughly alarmed, Zan leapt to his feet. He knew what it meant. It meant that Dael could not endure his own thoughts and needed to escape—anywhere! It meant that he could not bear to be stationary. Even now Dael was pacing up and down like a madman.
    â€œI’m sleeping, Dael,” Zan said. “I’m not going anywhere, and neither should you.” He started to lie down. Dael kicked at him again.
    â€œThen I must go alone?” Dael’s face was frightful with emotion. He turned to leave.
    â€œNo, wait,” Zan said. “I’ll go. But call Rydl too. And wait a little for the sun. We can’t go in the dark!” Zan was stalling.
    â€œWhat good is Rydl in manly matters?”
    â€œStill, I want him to come. What about Chul?”
    â€œNo.”
    Fortunately, dawn would soon arrive. Even in the dark of night Zan was unable to restrain Dael’s urgent impulsion. Rydl approached, and at a glance comprehended the situation. That was why Zan wanted him around. Rydl was quick to grasp things. And he was a great friend; Zan never had a better. Rydl did not want to go who-knew-where in the middle of the night, but in a whisper Zan begged him to assist in controlling his brother. In his present state Dael was apt to walk off a cliff—or jump off.
    A new idea lit—or rather darkened—Dael’s face. “The wasp people have been quiet. They are planning something. We cannot live with this danger.” Even in his better days, those who knew Dael avoided mentioning either the wasp people or the Noi in his presence.
    â€œWhich is it to be, Dael, the river or the wasp people?”
    â€œ
Come! Come!
” was all Dael replied.
    Zan wished that he could get his brother to lie down and go to sleep. Bed would be balm to him, but never hadDael seemed so disinclined to rest. Zan tried to reason with him: “What do you seek, Brother? You don’t even know where you are going.”
    â€œThey are like serpents waiting to strike. They must be destroyed before they have done their mischief,” Dael responded abstractedly, seemingly unaware of his brother’s question.
    â€œLet me get some things,” Zan said quietly. From his appearance, Dael might actually have undertaken, all alone, the destruction of the wasp people. “Do you have everything ready for a journey?” Zan asked. Zan knew he didn’t.
    Suddenly, Dael was rushing about, gathering supplies as if it had only just occurred to him that one could not travel without supplies. He seemed more interested in weapons than water or food.
    By now, Pax was awake. “Where are you going, Husband?” she asked. Zan nodded toward Dael’s hyperactivity, and she too immediately understood. She tried to say something calming to Dael, but it was as if he did not even see her.
    The sun was coming up when Dael, Zan, and Rydl departed—and Pax went with them.

 
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2
PAX
    When Zan’s wife came along on the strange and vague quest that Dael had begun, she came spear in hand. That was most unusual for a people whose women never carried weapons. In the Ba-Coro clan, as in most tribal societies, the roles of men and women were clearly defined and strongly separated. Only the men carried spears. Men fought the battles and hunted the game; the women did not. But Pax
did
hunt, to the consternation of the males, and she was very good at it, as her grandfather Aniah had been.
    Many people loved that aged, sinewy leader, but none more than this grandchild. When Pax was nine, she began secretly following him as he hunted (at that time Aniah always went out alone), doing what he did, stepping as he stepped, and shadowing him like a ghost. She was eleven before Aniah discovered that, as he was stalking the deer, he himself was being stalked. If he had not suddenly fallen—a rare event for the still-agile man—Aniah would not have seen her. When