Chapter 12

I talked to her a few times on the phone after Thanksgiving, but Zsallia kept saying she needed some time alone. I had all sorts of questions, but she just wouldn’t let me engage her in any long conversations. When I finally pushed her on the phone one night, all she said was, “I’m not in such a hurry now and I would hate to see you burn your bridges. I’ll see you when you have your affairs in order.” Then she made an excuse and hung up on me.

Typical.

Still, she was probably right anyway. The two weeks after Thanksgiving were a grind, what with quitting my job, then calming my wife’s horror over me quitting my job, then fending off my employer’s generous attempts to keep me from quitting my job. But the money “Miss Baker” was paying was far too good to pass up, and there was no way this could be a part-time gig anyway.

So it was a Monday in the middle of December when I finally saw her for the first time after Denver. I brought her a sack of groceries, and as I approached her suite door I noticed it was already open. I had called ahead as a courtesy, so I just knocked at the door jam, poked my head in–and froze. She was standing by the breakfast table smoking a cigarette and drinking a large glass of orange juice.

Standing. Not balancing on one leg. Standing on two.

A tiny foot, about half normal size and curled up a bit, poked out of the left leg of her blue jeans. She wore a billowy, long-sleeved blouse, but it looked like her arm had elongated a bit as well. I just stared at her.

She gave me an embarrassed-looking half-grin. “I still can’t walk very well on it,” she said, putting down her glass, grabbing an elegant-looking walking stick, and hobbling toward me. I just stood there looking at her from the doorway. As she approached, she leaned her stick against the wall, looked at me very seriously, and shook my hand. “It is a pleasure to see you again,” she said softly.

“I brought you a present,” I said gruffly, pointing to the bag of
groceries. As she thanked me, I noticed that she looked like she’d put on at least 15 pounds–pounds that looked good on her. She’d seemed wanly pretty in the hospital, but now her cheeks, bust, and hips had all filled out significantly. The circles were completely gone from under her eyes, and she didn’t look nearly so pale. I noticed, though, that she winced a bit in pain as she took up her cane and limped back into the suite.

“Please come in and make yourself comfortable. If you could set the bag on the counter there I would appreciate it.”

I set the bag down on the bar, staring as she limped into the middle of the suite and sat down on a large sofa. I moved to a large easy chair across from her, took out the recorder and set it down on the glass coffee table, then said, “How the hell are you even possible, Zsallia?”

She gave me a pained smile. “Not one to waste any time, are you?” she said. A bit awkwardly, she pulled her shriveled left foot onto her right knee, and began massaging the new leg, which looked very thin under the jeans. “It hurts,” she said, absently. “But it’s a bit stronger every day, and it helps to rub it.” Then she fixed her eyes on mine. “The short answer to your question is ?I don’t know.’ My primary hypothesis, the one that seems to make the most sense, is that I’m a sport. Some sort of odd stage of evolution gone awry.” She smiled a bit sickly, and said, “An acquaintance once suggested that I might be some sort of new stage in human evolution.” She gave an evil chuckle, and I started a bit, but she gave me a friendly snort and winked. “I’m not much of one if so, since I add nothing to the gene pool, and there aren’t any others like me. I’m hardly a boon to the race.”

“I hate to say it,” I said, “but that doesn’t really make any sense anyway. Genetic anomalies, even if they’re very extreme, can’t produce things like… like….”

“I wouldn’t be so certain if I were you. Man’s knowledge of these things is hardly complete.”

“But no one’s ever found any immortal animals, or spontaneous growth of limbs like this, I’m sure of it,” I said.

“Yes, well, perhaps you’d know better than I.” Her expression was blank. “I honestly don’t know.” She seemed to be growing distant, and a little cold, as she spoke.

“So you’re pretty sure you’re not…” I trailed off. I wasn’t sure what I was asking, or how to proceed. “You’ve never met anyone else like yourself?”

“No. I’ve made a few efforts to look, made a very serious effort for about 200 years not long ago. Decided to chase legends of vampires and whatnot, thinking perhaps…. Well, it came to naught. I entertained the notion that I might be from fabled Atlantis for a while, but it now seems rather unlikely that such a place even existed. I am alone so far as I know, and I do not know how I came to be.” She paused, and smiled a bit again. “I’m one of God’s little jokes, perhaps.”

I heard just a trace of bitterness there as she pulled out a cigarette and puffed it to life. None of this made any sense, but she seemed to be getting glum inside. “Well, let’s try something else,” I said, thinking about it. “Back in Denver, you told me you woke up one day with amnesia, and said for a long time after that you were, well, stupid, and a piece of property more or less. That’s obviously changed for you. When did you start to be, well, not slow and stupid?”

She thought about it for a while. Her eyes took on a faraway look, as if she was searching through the caverns of her mind. “It’s tempting to draw a fine line. For a long time I was not really so much aware of the world or myself as simply existing. Almost like a beast. I believe it took nearly half a millennia to understand what I was and even longer to fully accept it. For a long time, a very, very long time, I was traded and sold every few years, either as a beast of burden or a whore, and did little but what was expected of me. It honestly never even occurred to me to resent it, and I thought very little about much of anything. I merely did the necessary, whatever was easy, and nothing more.”

She thought about it some more. “I suppose it may have begun to change when I first learned to count.” She looked up at me. “Yes, it was probably there, although I can’t say it was all that dramatic.”

I shook my head. “Counting?” I asked, a bit confused.

“Well, most people didn’t, you know. One, two, three, perhaps, then simply “many.” But there was once this odd traveler who guested in the roundhouse of my master. I was sent to entertain his bed because he’d found favor with our chief shaman. That was no small feat since we usually killed strangers in that tribe. But he was entertaining, and didn’t have any possessions that seemed worth killing him over.”

“Jeez,” I interrupted. “Real barbarians huh?”

In response, she just gave me the oddest look, like she was looking through me. “I suppose so,” she said. She sounded pretty noncommittal though. I could also tell she wanted me to shut up, so I did.

“Anyway,” she said, “He sang, and told tales, and none of us had met anyone quite like him. He wasn’t too rough in bed either, come to think of it. But afterward, while we talked idly, he asked my age and I couldn’t tell him. So he taught me the basic skill of counting to ten, then to count tens: one ten, two tens, three tens, and so on. It was more an amusement than anything else for him, but I picked it up pretty quickly. He probably doubled my sale value in the years to come, as I think of it.”

That last part made me queasy, but I didn’t say anything. She smiled ironically at me, like she could read my mind and was enjoying my discomfort a little. But she went on.

“So he asked me again how old I was, and I lied. I told him thirty-three because one hundred and thirty-three felt frighteningly wrong somehow. I wasn’t sure why, but it did.”

I thought about that. “I’m not sure I could count all the years I remember, and I’m nowhere near that old.”

“Yes, well I confess that there is a certain amount of guessing involved,” she said, “but I’ve a fairly sharp memory, and am fairly good at guessing the passage of time. There’s no clock in this room but I can tell you that it’s about 10:45 as we speak. Years sometimes seem blurry but I can usually count the springs. If I think on it, for example, I seem to recall reading that my favorite modern author, Samuel Clemens, passed on… oh, 83 Springs ago I believe.” She sighed. “There’s one I wish were still writing, even if his last days were so sad.”

“83 huh?” I said. “How long ago did Shakespeare die?”

She gave me a dim look, one of her eyelids drooping like an evil eye, although she put a little grin behind it. “I’m not a circus pony, my friend.”

“Sorry,” I muttered, and grinned back. She smiled bigger and moved on.

“Just take my word that I’m guessing, but that I’m pretty good at this. I have had a long time with my memories, and plentiful opportunities to double-check myself. In any case,” she went on, “that was one small incident I remember being different. I seem to recall that I learned a bit about guile the first time I became a shaman’s woman exclusively. But for the longest time I merely existed, and drew as little attention to myself as possible, and that was all.”

She stopped, and just looked at me. I gathered that she was ready for another question, but wasn’t sure what to ask. Finally I remembered something. “You told me once that there was a child who helped you decide you were something more than property or whatever. What was the story there??”

“Oh,” she said, starting. “Attuz,” she sighed, “and his father.” She smiled, wistfully. Out of nowhere, she suddenly looked almost tender. “I suppose I could tell you about them. He was my first husband you know. My first true husband, and I still think of him that way. It would be something of a long story though.”

I smiled. “I’d guess you’ve got a lot of those. But it’s what I’m here for, right?” I asked.

“Very well,” she said, and took a deep breath.

Chapter 13

Circa 1100 B.C.

The next few years were happy ones. Deliriously so, and when I use that word, part of me acknowledges that it was a delirium in some ways, for there was also a madness to what I was doing that I did not wish to acknowledge.

Still, I had never felt so alive, so free, or so accepted. Just belonging to him made me respected by most of the women, well-liked by most of the men, accepted almost everywhere I went, and treated as an equal by most. It was intoxicating. His children were also both wonderful, and I took to helping him with them both like a duck to water.

Hunting was a constant thrill and pleasure. Although the men teased me at times when I would join their hunting groups, they always welcomed me. I learned as fast as the cleverest young boys among them, and even some of the girls started trying to take after me. All were impressed by how quickly I acquired skills that usually took young people several years to master. I learned so quickly in part because I possessed at least some of the basics of these skills before, having quietly watched others during my years as a lowly orjan or outright slave. But I believe I also learned so well because I had learned patience in my 400 years, and because this new avocation was such a heady joy for me.

One frustration was that I never could manage to throw a spear quite as hard as the men, but my ever-gently-mocking husband Att had an immediate solution when I mentioned it. He made for me what we called a darriz, which was very similar to what is called an atlatl today: a special spear-thrower. They are a bit tricky to master, but allow one to throw farther and harder than with the naked arm. Most of the men did not bother with them since hunting deer in deep forest rarely required one, but I found it invaluable, and soon could out-throw many of the men who were too proud to use the darriz.

While I did not always join the men on their hunts, I was fully accepted when I did join them. Indeed, sometimes they were disappointed when I demurred to stay home with little Attuz and Herdhiz. But even when I stayed back with the children and other women, I would still practice my weaponry, and even teach the younger children some of what I had learned with Att and the other men.
I learned best, and had the greatest joy, however, when Att would take me with him on his solitary hunts. A few times we went off together for a week or more at a time, leaving the children with Att’s sister. Those trips together were always the most delightful for me, as he would teach me some of the tricks not everyone learned, of solitary tracking, of hiding your own tracks, and of mastering complete silence in the woods. He also helped me grow particularly adept with the sign language of his people, and we would sometimes hold suggestive and lurid conversations together while sitting in the pre-dawn, waiting for elusive game. He was something of a rutting beast; it was one of the many things I loved about him.

Often on those solitary hunts, especially during the mid-day when we tired of stalking real prey, we would make a game of tracking. He would hide in the woods, covering his tracks and leaving only hints for me. He knew I had mastered those skills on the day I not only caught him unawares, but managed to attack him from behind, jumping upon him and pinning him to the ground before he sensed my presence. He yelped in startled surprise, then laughed, turned over, and pinned me as I opened for him. He was easily the best lover I had ever had, but that day in particular was one of our most splendid lovemaking sessions.

In later days for sport we would practice by having me hide in the woods, covering my own tracks. He would always find me, but as the season wore on, I became good enough at the game that I had to intentionally leave him at least one or two traces so he would not give up. After all, our unspoken agreement was that if he found me he got to ravish me, and that was no prize I wanted to deny him!

Still, for all our fun, Att sometimes needed to go out on his own. I respected that need, and never minded. I knew it was not a rejection of my companionship, but rather a reaffirmation of his place in the village. He was not a farmer, could not seem to take that task seriously, so I knew he needed to prove his value to himself more than those around him. Besides, he was my husband, and I desperately loved him, the first man I could ever say such a thing about. I would do most anything to make him happy, and was often content just to be near him. Moreover, his children, his sister, and the other villagers were a joy to be around, and I basked in the acceptance and friendship I had found among them while Att was away. Indeed, I drank it in thirstily. I had never known such contentment.

I have progressed so many centuries since those days that I rarely think on them. Yet of all the memories of my first centuries, those burn brightest in my mind, and almost always bring a smile to my lips when I do think on them. He was my husband, my first true husband, and in many ways still he is my hero. He taught me so very much about life, about what I could be, about self-respect and self-worth, about confidence, about friendship. I was changed so much by that flickering instant in my long existence, it seems nearly miraculous.

During those brief, heady years, the only bad spots were those times, late at night, when I would awaken sweating, my pulse racing, unbidden thoughts echoing in my head, whispering: this cannot last, this cannot go on. He is going to die, and you will not. But I angrily pushed those thoughts away. I knew one day I would have to face them, but I refused to think on it. Joy had been denied me; misery and loneliness and self-loathing my constant companions for so long, I could not make myself face the truth. I knew I would have to make a choice one day, but I refused to ponder it, instead holding it at arm’s length, desperate to somehow escape the inevitable.

As it turned out, the choice was made for me.

I had but four years of happiness there, only four years of belonging to Att and his people. It was little more than the space between two heartbeats, but one fact I have known from the very beginning: all things end.

It was spring again, the beginning of my fifth year with these people. I was baking bread with Att’s sister and two other women late one day. We would make many flat loaves at one time, sufficient to serve us for a many days. Winter had been hard, and another earthquake had frightened us all recently. But the hunting had been a little better, enough to keep starvation away, and now we had bread again, and the weather was fairer. We all hoped this year would be better than the last, and we would joke that it could hardly be any worse.

I stepped out of the hut where we had our ovens. The scent of fresh bread was like flowers on the air, sweet and promising. But then there was a commotion to the south, first just a hint of noise, then cries of alarm, then screaming.

They thundered into the village, men on horses, clad in dark leather and bronze, wielding lances and swords and great hammers, laying about them at all they encountered. I had seen war before, had seen slaughter, but this… who were they? I stood transfixed, staring as they swept closer, until one of the women peeked out from the hut and shrieked to her children to run and hide.

I found myself running, desperate to find Att and the children, my hands aching for my sling or a spear, anything I could use to fight. They moved up the hill, slowly now, more methodical as the men in the village began to fight, lunging at the riders with whatever was at hand. I saw a rider go down, swarmed by farmers with shovels and forks, and then heard an ululating scream–Att! I turned towards the sound in time to see a rider turn the corner and bear down on me, raising a giant hammer for a looping swing. I ducked low and scraped up a handful of dirt, tossing it at his face as I slipped inside his swing, nearly getting caught under his mount. He cursed and spat, rubbing at his face as he furiously heeled his horse, turning to come at me again.

Lunging forward I managed to make a turn around a hut, then dashed along the wall until I reached my own dwelling where our spears were laid up against the outside wall. Desperately wishing for my darriz, I seized up the largest spear I could reach and turned as the rider again swept around the corner of the row of huts, casting about, looking for me.

“Red! No!” Att screamed as I stepped away from the wall and set myself to throw. The rider spied me, laughed as he wheeled his horse and lunged towards me, his hammer high as he prepared to swing down on me, while his left hand clutched the reins, presenting his small shield against what he obviously thought was the very small danger of my throwing the spear. He did not see a woman as a real threat.

The man died when I dropped to one knee and planted the butt of my weapon firmly on the ground, guiding the point towards the right side of his belly and letting his own momentum impale him. The spear stuck in the ground and lifted him out of his saddle, turning him over. His head crashed to the ground, and I heard his skull and neck break as he died. I was buffeted aside as his horse shied past me, but I rolled to my feet and turned just in time to see another rider, and another hammer whistling towards my head. I turned and began to duck–but then I saw nothing more.

Consciousness was pain. My head ached, my side burned, and thirst and hunger warred inside me for primacy. I was trapped beneath something, and as I forced my eyes to open I understood that somebody was on top of me.

“Get off!” I gasped, but the person was not moving. I began to push, struggling out from underneath…them. The bodies had been gathered and tossed in a rude pile in the center of the village. The reek of blood and death and fire was overwhelming, and as I crawled free of the bodies I saw the smoldering ruin of the village, all the dwellings and outbuildings reduced to charred mounds.

It had all happened so fast, so suddenly, so unexpectedly, I could barely think. I was too weak to stand, and all I knew was that the well was nearby and I desperately needed water. My head ached horribly and my limbs protested, resisting the urge to move, but ever so slowly I managed to crawl to the well, pulling myself up so I was leaning against it. I rested there, gathering my strength, when I heard something off to my left.

“Utha?”

The voice startled me, even though it was so small, so frightened. I turned towards it, too exhausted, and feeling too much pain, to react strongly. But then joy flickered in me as I finally recognized him: Att’s son, Attuz. He was peering at me from behind a stone wall that backed on the forest above the village.

“Attuz!” I croaked, my tongue thick and dry, “Attuz… help me. Water…”

He came over the wall, wary, but eager to see anyone he knew still alive. He drew a bucket of water from the well for me, I drank greedily, the sweet taste of it coursing through me. The sickening ache in my belly began to subside. The effect was almost instantaneous. I could feel strength returning to my limbs, my thoughts clearing, although I suddenly felt hungry. I reached up to feel the aching wound at the back of my head, and felt encrusted blood mixed in with my hair as I probed the tenderness.

“Attuz, is anyone else here? Is anyone alive?”

“No… Hild and Tokiz were with me up in the trees, but they went home just before… before…”

Hild and Tokiz were Attuz’s cousins. I managed to get to my feet and drew another bucket of water, using it to wash the blood and filth from my body and hair.

“Your father?” I finally asked, but my heart knew the likely answer. Attuz’s eight-year-old face turned solemn and he shrugged.

“I haven’t seen him,” he said, sounding lost and frightened. “What are we going to do?”

“We can’t stay here, they may come back through. We’ll see if we can find anything useful, then we go. That way,” I pointed south, into the wilderness. Attuz looked uncertain at the thought, but he nodded. Together we started searching through the ravaged village, gathering together anything useful that we could carry, mostly tools and knives. The riders had stolen almost everything of value, but useful scraps and overlooked items were still to be found.

While he was off scouring one of the burnt-out barns, I went to the pile of bodies and started searching for Att. Finally, I found him, his body battered and bloody, with wounds on his arms and through his chest. He had died fighting.

I dragged him free of the pile and straightened his limbs, then paused to stare at his face. As I closed his wide, staring eyes, I felt something very small, like the collarbone of a tiny bird, snap inside me.

Then I felt nothing.

I started picking through the other bodies looking for salvageable clothing or tools. I found Herdiz, her young face almost peaceful despite the pallor of death upon her. Her neck was broken and I straightened her head as I laid her beside her father. I continued my searching, but there was very, very little. I collected anything leather or metal. I could sort through it later. I had just finished piling it all together when Attuz returned to the well.

“Look what I found!” he exclaimed, holding high two loaves of the bread I had helped to bake that now felt like an age ago. “There’s more in the bag, too. Some of it was burnt, but most of it was sitting on the sill outside the…” He stopped when he saw his father and sister stretched out on the ground. After a moment he set down the things he had found and walked over to where the bodies lay, falling to his knees. I took to wrapping up the things we would take with us, forcing myself to ignore the rumbling in my belly as the scent of the bread reached me, trying hard to feel something, anything, as I listened to the boy quietly weeping.

When I was ready I stepped up behind him, standing over Att’s body. I reached down and took his hand, drawing him to his feet. We stood together, regarding his father and sister.

Attuz looked up at me, his face passive, and then he stared away into the sky. I squeezed his hand, and looked down at the body of his father.

We stood silently for a bit longer. Then I let go of Attuz’s hand, pulled out my knife, and reached up to my scalp. Roughly, wincing a bit at the pain still in my skull, I severed my braid. Bending down, I put it into Att’s lifeless hand, closing his fingers about it, then straightened back up.

“Good bye, Att,” I said.

“It isn’t fair,” the boy said, his voice breaking.

“No. It isn’t fair,” I said. I took his hand again, and shook it a little. He looked up at me. “It is never fair, Attuz,” I said, looking into his eyes. “Never.” I felt almost nothing, but it seemed important that he understand this.

He nodded. We stood silently contemplating for one last moment, then I handed him the sack full of bread he had found, and took up my pack.

Together we walked south into the forest. We never looked back.

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Methuselah’s Daughter, A Novel

Posted on June 25th, 2007 by Zsallia
Filed under: The Novel