 |
 |
 |
|
Arthropods
Scurrying Sounds
The cave was cool and dry inside, with a musty smell. Meredith could see nothing in the darkness. Scurrying sounds as of insects rustling over dried grass caused her to pull her ankles together protectively. She groped around without contacting anything solid.
"Over here," said the shaman, his voice nearby in the darkness. She scrambled toward the sound. The ground underfoot was littered with fallen debris. She stumbled against something large which was solidly rooted in the floor. A buckle on her pack struck against it, producing a long melodious tone which resounded within the object and echoed from the walls of the cave.
Meredith felt her way forward blindly, fumbling with her hands and discovered that she had bumped into a wide hollow tube made of smooth fired clay sunk deeply into the floor of the cave.
It was the sipapu from which they had emerged.
World of Earth
"Where are we?" asked Meredith, still searching for the shaman in the darkness.
"In the cave of the First World, the World of Earth," Shaman Far Heart said, running his knife around the edge of the clay cylinder and setting it humming. "Our wise ones say that the first creatures emerged from this place. When you entered the sipapu, you traveled from your time to my time. And from my time to the time of my ancestors. And from their time to the time of their ancestors. Now we are standing at the very beginning of time, at the place where the first creatures emerged from the bowels of the earth."
Before Time
"Can we see where they came from?" Meredith asked.
"I cannot take you further back than this." He spoke softly as though the darkness contained a power to be respected. "Before the First World there was Nothingness, the Void, the Time before Time. You will return there when you die. But the living can travel no further back than the First World."
Insects
"Look." The shaman dipped his staff into the fire and held the burning stick up to the wall. By the light of the torch, Meredith saw that the walls of the cave were formed of smooth limestone richly veined with florescent strips of calcite.
The dark walls were thickly infested with pale insects, burrowing into the crevices. They had curious fuzzy feelers with double and triple crossbars which they waved about, as if trying to detect some hidden vibrations.
At the approach of the shaman's torch, the ants scurried away.
Centuries
"It's amazing. The ants are all white," said Meredith. "They must have been living underground for many years."
"Many lifetimes," said the shaman, shuffling through the litter of straw, twigs and dry leaves that lined the floor of the cave.
"Could you hold the torch up here in the corner of the cave. Yes! It's the ants' nest and here's a huge hill of sand and gravel with twigs and leaves on its top. It must have been here for centuries!" There were no ants in view. Some cut desert tobacco plants with white flowers lay beside the ant hill. Knowing them to be a medicinal herb, Meredith picked up a few and stripped them of their pungent smelling leaves.
"Do not go near the ants' nest. Their sting is vicious," said the shaman.
Kindling Light
In the dark Meredith heard a rustling sound. A spark appeared and then a small flame. She recognized the shaman's form as he fed brush to a fire until it provided enough light to see by. In his hands were a strip of animal hide and a small wooden bow. With these he had set a spark to a small handful of fiber, and now the fire was burning merrily.
As the flames flared up, Meredith took in her surroundings. Standing where the shaman should have been was a huge dark insect-like creature. Its body plates gleamed in the firelight like black armor. It was the height of a man, and stood on two splintery legs. Four arms protruded from its thorax. One arm
"I will not hurt you," said the creature. It seemed to speak with the shaman's voice. Indeed, as she watched warily, the Ant Man's black armor melted away, and before her stood the shaman.