The Totem-Maker (part one hundred twenty-three)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Twelve

A Land So Perilous

(part one hundred twenty-three)

To Gunda the Slow, Iokka spoke again, low-voiced. “They malign you. Who is cleverer than Gunda, yet cannot see the way clear? Use Amira’s gift. Your land is sunny, and your barns are full. Have you a horse as fine as this? I have not named him. I leave that to his new master.”

Gunda might have wished the horse his own…

He did wish it, but thought too late of this solution. Dazha, of the Misted Forests, the wise and quiet sister, had sense enough to wish the horse multiplied by twelve, but belayed by an impulse towards Iokka, she hesitated in cracking her egg, and amended this to thirteen. Amira spied the loom of chaos, but had no egg of his own, and could only rain upon deaf ears a repetition of: “Peace! Brothers and sisters, peace!”

Bisha, who was Goddess of Rivers and travelled by barge, wanted the horse a broken nag, to teach Iokka that trickery earned its deserts. Zaza wished the horse at home again in Iokka’s stable. Leuntha, god of the Night Skies, dared wish for his father’s great mind in this, to divine the True Answer. In short, each sibling (though I have never heard this story give a complete list of the twelve wishes) broke the egg at the same moment, asking a different fate—upon the same poor animal!

Under the great pavilion disaster burst, a herd of fierce-tempered stallions…first twelve, then twenty, then a hundred, some worse for being lamed or crazed…mounted the tables, terrified the shrieking servants and musicians, broke the dishes, summoned a cacophony of dying cries from the trampled instruments…

And brought at last the four massive tentpoles down, escaping frenzied to run riot over the earth. The strike of each hoof raised a spring, fountaining in a thousand jets until all the land lay submerged and silent.

My Totem would have me contemplate this fable. From my childhood, when the old woman had told me it, I had thought of Dazha most. The impetus to be kind had stopped her being first to wish, and if she had, all the brothers and sisters would have got their share, eleven eggs (counting Iokka’s) remaining. Though at such small age, I could not believe in a world so full of goodness that a generous act would be repaid by other generous acts, a chain of goodwill to repeat itself forever… But I sympathized, how I sympathized, with the goddess—for meaning, for trying. For failing, because we must fail.

Here it was dawn, and time to say goodbye. Or soon, when cold limbs stirred, and even a prince might rise at the smell of breakfast. To the left-hand totem I said, do you understand? It is not courage I invest you with, but goodwill.

The face sharpened and the eyes closed like a cat’s.

This totem I felt obeyed me. I felt strong, and accepted its wish to be ruled. Moth I found on padded feet entering my tent to empty it. When he had chivvied me away, he folded the tent, helping with one of the soldiers now under my command, to tie my baggage on Cuerpha’s back.

127

Lore and Lessons

The Totem-Maker (part one)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)