The Gods Among Us

Chapter 47 - Julie Began The Tradition

Julie began the tradition of the Sabatta shortly after Johnny was born. He was the first to be whelped by Kamrasi here in Egup. There was Mary, Violet, and Buddy, who came along the way here. Julie felt her oats were drying up, she used to say, and thought we needed to have some connection with the past. People loved the Sabatta right from the start. Even those who were here first liked to listen. It became their life.

They were fond of us because I killed their chief, Kuka. Kuka was a bad man. He was a tall, hairy man with bronze-colored skin. He looked like one of those goats that were all covered with hair, except the Kuka's hair was muddy - his body was thick with it. Julie often said about him and his Clan that they stank, that they never bothered to bathe. Even Kamrasi bathed for Julie, or there wouldn't be any baby-making. He seemed to differentiate between bathing and swimming, which he did often while fishing, but when it came time to bathe, he fussed like a little boy. That was a sight - seeing him run into the river and out again as if that was enough to do the job, but Julie would march him back into the water and take handfuls of sand and rub him till he looked a whole new person. She started something that day, and now it's common.

It was Sabatta time again, and the Clan had gathered around the eternal fire. I see new faces all the time, some new children who are growing up quickly, and others are new visitors from other Clans coming to mingle and live.

We had been wandering for some time, and at first, with Riangi and Tubi gone, we walked with lowered heads, saying little, having nothing to say. It is what it is. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, world without end.

Julie began each morning like that, saying things like that from that moment on. She called it praying, and I suppose the Ori heard her because they managed to keep us alive. And in spite of it all, Kamrasi clung to the old ways.

He guided us along the dried river and scorched earth. To the west was a plateau that rose swiftly from the river and stood like some vaulted wall and beckoned us to climb it. We rarely saw anything more alive than fruits, like figs and berries, and little else. The land rose and fell, but we mostly stayed near what had been because he said it was the only way to find his home, as he had come that way.

Julie was surprised at how far the destruction had gone. Trees flattened under the power of the volcano, like grass under the huge Fasthorn herds as they migrated. We went slowly, and Kamrasi told us stories about how things were before the flood, and I absorbed everything like the baked earth absorbs water. He cursed the Outsiders for our captivity, blaming them as if the disaster was their fault. He spoke of his father and how he couldn't wait to see him again. Julie prayed for his safety.

We came to an impassable barrier, and we stood on the edge of a deep tear that was too wide and deep to climb through, so we turned west onto the flatland that stood high above the walled valley of the old riverbed. The air seemed cleaner there, but the ground was parched, and still, the crevasse went on forever, separating us from where we needed to go. It steered us away, also, from the new river Nile formed by the volcano and onto barren and rocky lands. Julie said it looked like someone had dropped an A-bomb. Kamrasi asked what that was, and I imagined huge Jabberwockies or the big giants that lived here before us who made the world drop huge boulders on the ground. Kamrasi spat three times, and so I did the same.

The wind blew incessantly, whistling over cracked and jagged rocks, and blew black sand across our path. By the end of each day we were covered with it so that Julie was even a different color. We were always thirsty, and we had to dig under plants for water to drink because the ponds and streams were still poisoned. We stopped for a few days until we quenched that dryness and then moved on.