- Xark'on -

Caroline gasps, a sound that she manages to make exotic and alluring. But then, everything is alluring with her.

“Who made this?” She's staring at the painting.

“I did.”

She touches the skin as if so in awe she has to check that it's real. “You? But... it's wonderful!”

I manage not to smile with the boyish satisfaction I feel from her words. Nobody else has ever said that, and my tribesmen were never impressed. “It passes the time.”

“You painted Bune. As seen from here. And it's so vivid!”

“There are some old paintings in some of caves around the jungle. I found them interesting. I thought I'd do the same. But not on rock. It's difficult to get the paint to stick. I use skins from Smalls and Bigs. Smalls are better. The grain is finer.”

Her hand is in front of her mouth as she studies the picture. “I can't believe this. It's like seeing a photograph.”

“A what?”

“A photograph, a picture recorded with light and a device... Never mind. It's like I'm looking right at the real thing. Except this one is in daytime.”

“Fodagaf or not, it's not finished.”

She looks closer. “You still have to do the sky. And this part here. But the detail is amazing! It must have taken you weeks!”

“Two seasons so far.”

“This can't be the first painting you've made. You must have been doing this for years.”

I motion to the stack of skins on the floor. “Since I was a boy. Before the stripening.”

“May I?” She lifts the upper skin and holds it out in front of her. “That's a T. Rex.”

Her speech is fine, apart from the sing-song quality of it, but she sometimes uses words I don't know.

“It's a dangerous Big,” I correct her.

“Yes, I know. We call it a T. Rex?” She leafs through the skins. “This is a flock of irox. It's fantastic. And these... are they your tribesmen?”

“Some of them.”

“A hunting party, right? I can't believe how lifelike they are. What do you use to paint?”

I point to the colors and the stick. “That.”

She looks. “No, I mean your brushes and paints and palette and so on.”

“That's it. I don't think I have a palt.”

“It's a little board for holding your paints while you're painting. So you don't have to bend over and dip the brush all the time. You do have brushes, right?”

I scratch my chin. “I have a brush for treating the skins of Smalls after I skin them.”

“I mean for painting?”

Again I point at the stick and the colors, feeling stupid, not knowing what she means. “That's all I have.”

She looks again. “That's it? But... how can you create something like this with a little stick?”

I put the rope down and come over, picking up one of the jars of color. “This is green. This is red. This is as close to yellow as I can get. The white clouds I just don't color on the skin, because it's light in hue. This I use to apply.”

I take the stick, dip the thinnest end into the green fluid and place one dot on the skin, among all the other dots of green that each make out a tree. So now there is one more dot than there are actually trees in that part of the jungle.

Caroline leans forwards, and her sweet scent fills my nose and makes me dizzy. “That... but... this whole picture is just tiny dots! It has to be thousands of them! A million! More! I can't believe it!” Her eyes are very big and her mouth is open.

I want to smile. I had no idea my simple pastime could give rise to such enthusiasm. And it seems genuine. A warm feeling spreads in my chest and my face. “I know of no other way to do it. Probably a waste of time that would be better spent hunting. But it gives me some pleasure.”

“Xark'on, this is wonderful. You're an artist!”

Another word I don't know. “I'm an ardis?”

“Yes! Ar-tist. Someone who enjoys creating things. I know there's not much of that here on Xren, but you absolutely are one. And you're totally great.”

I sit back down. I may be an artist, but it holds little value. Being a good hunter or warrior is much more important. Drawing lines on rocks and in the ground is what the young boys do. It's not for grown men with stripes. But I am both a hunter and a warrior. And I only make my pictures after the day is over, when other tribesmen prefer to sit around the fire and talk.

Well, that's the way I mostly do it. That picture of Bune was begun in a feverish rush that lasted for two whole days, just so I wouldn't forget what happened. I needed a record of it so that I would later be able to believe what I saw that day and that it wasn't just a dream.

Caroline clears her voice and points to the un-painted parts of the picture. “Will you paint the sky in the same way?”

“I can't do the sky,” I grunt. “I have no blue.”

“Can't you just make blue paint like you made the green and the red?”

“No. I never had any blue. No creatures make the color blue. I've tried. I’ve tried to crush blue rocks, but they just turn gray. Small ponds of water look blue from a distance. Then when you get closer, you see it's just water. The sky is blue, but I can't reach high enough up to dip the stick in it. Even from up here.”

She looks out at the jungle again. It's quite dark out there now, and the only light in here is the torch I've lit. I can't make rope in darkness, and it gets very dark here at night.

“So dark,” the woman echoes my thoughts. “Can I stay here tonight?”

For a moment, I'm standing beside myself again. This is too unreal. A woman, an actual woman, is standing in this old tree house praising my paintings and asking to stay here. It's like an old fairy tale like the ones that the tribesmen tell the younger men around the fire.

I'm suddenly back there being told some outlandish tale and having an urge to draw it, to paint it and make it mine, just like I had when I was a boy. This woman. I have to paint her so I don't forget this strange event.

But then what? Will she expect me to keep her alive every day, like today? To carry her on my back through the jungle? To keep her safe from Bigs and Smalls? To have her idly watch me while I do the work that will change everything forever?

She is so small and soft, I can't imagine her hunting. She's like a child in the jungle, awkward and reckless and dangerous. I can't imagine her working. She's small and soft and weak, and she smells so dizzyingly sweet.

I can't imagine her doing anything of value. I can easily imagine her with her legs apart and her slit presented to me, and indeed that's an image I have to constantly chase out of my mind.

Does she expect me to keep her here? Will she do anything in return?

Can I hunt for two while also doing my work?

She made me feel good when she looked at my paintings. That's well and good. But apart from that, which value does she have?

The Ancestors gave her to me for a reason. And now I think my first impulse was the right one. She's plainly as attractive to Troga as she is to me. That's why she's here with me.

The Ancestors are telling me that I'm doing the right thing.

And to show it, they gave her to me to use as bait in the trap. Very well, bait she will be. I will keep her with me until the time has come.

I look at her and try a little smile to put her at ease. “Yes, you can.”