Heng VI

PA 1.9 – March

It was early evening one wet Spring afternoon where the Elders of the White Mammoth Tribe gathered with their Chieftain. The five of them sat in a circle beneath the cover of a large teepee, the flaps open wide to allow their tribesmen to listen in as their Elders debated.

“Spring arrives,” Elder Hotah mused, blowing smoke from his old, worn pipe. The old Elder’s face, wrinkled with age, seemed almost relaxed now. “The worst of winter is behind us, and now the old life of the world reawakens from its slumber.”

“How very poetic,” Elder Chayton smiled softly, idly tapping his knee. “I didn’t take you to be so happy to see spring again.”

Elder Hotah chuckled. “You’re still young yet. When you get to my age, when your bones creak and your skin chafes, you find yourself yearning for the warmer days of summer.”

“You’re telling me?” Heng, God-King of their tribe, huffed in agreement. “That winter was awful! I think I froze to death twice, at least!”

“Oh?” Elder Chayton’s smile turned a bit more wry. “Only twice? It sounds to me like you’re just complaining to complain. Now, if you’d died three times—then you’d have reason to complain.”

Heng rolled his eyes, but didn’t refute him.

It was, in some ways, nice to now be a part of the Elder’s inner circle. While the invitation had always stood, he’d always felt like an outsider to them—like a man who’d lucked into a promotion he didn’t know how to handle.

However, after he’d gotten married to Wachiwi, she’d gradually pushed him further and further into his role as chief. Starting off small, she’d dropped hints that he should join the elders for conversation, or take part in a vote. After three months of him procrastinating, she’d finally had enough and blackmailed him into actually doing his damn job.

He had no idea where she’d learned that he’d peed his pants during track back in middle school. (He talked in his sleep). He wasn’t even sure she understood what middle school was. (She didn’t). But he’d be damned if he let anyone else know about that! (Wachiwi wore the pants in their relationship).

It had been nearly a year since he’d been married. But now, just barely, he felt like he was actually a part of this village.

“I suppose now, the only thing left to decide is whether we should take the Spring path or the Summer path,” Elder Chaska hummed, tapping his leg absently. “Normally we’d take the Spring path and be done with it, but I feel we should give it a second thought this year. Much has changed, and I worry that old choices we take for granted might backfire on us in unforeseen ways.”

“Spring path?” Heng asked, frowning. “Summer path? What are those?”

“Hn. I sometimes forget how little you know. The paths are the paths we follow. Every equinox we decide which path we take. We took the Summer path last year, where you found your Tusk-Beast. We follow it northwest, through the prairie. The Spring path instead moves northeast, into the forests and towards the grand river. Normally we alternate between the two every year, but sometimes other circumstances require more thought on the topic.”

“Well, I vote the Spring path,” Chayton raised his hand. “I see no reason for us to change now.”

“You forget the Tusk-Beast,” Elder Chaska countered. “Which is why I brought this up. Can it survive in the forests? The hills? We have already had to take the Winter path because it could not survive the heat of the south. I vote the Summer path—we have no need to worry then.”

“I see your point, Elder Chaska,” Elder Hotah nodded. “However, I feel you are being too cautious. If the Tusk-Beasts were so fragile, they would not be so big. Either way, we need to restock our stores of wood and seeds from the forests. The recent dry-spell has left us wanting. As such, I vote the Spring path.”

“Eh, I’d prefer if Mohu wasn’t put into a situation like that in the first place,” Heng frowned, shaking his head. “Ecosystems are fragile things, and removing animals from them can have drastic consequences. Mammoths are similar to elephants, who require large grasslands to survive. She might be fine, but I vote the Summer path. It’s better to be safe than sorry after all.”

The four Elders frowned at each other, frustrated but not angry. They did not agree, but that happened often when they voted like this. As the spirits said, from age came wisdom, and from wisdom, duty. But wisdom was different in every man, and so when disagreements happened, a vote was called, and a choice made. One voice was fallible, but many voices were strong.

Rather, the reason they were so frustrated was…

The four of them turned to the final Elder, Elder Wapasha, who had so far stayed quiet. With a slow blink, the eldest Elder glanced at each of them, his head slowly bobbing between them with cloudy eyes. His mouth creaked open and closed, making a wet sound as he smacked his lips.

Then—

“What’re y’all talking about?”

The four of them slumped, several of them letting out a quiet groan of frustration. They knew this would happen. Why did they keep letting this happen!?

“We are—” Chayton tried to speak up, only to get cut off by the ancient Elder.

“WHAT!?” The Elder yelled, raising a hand to his ear. “YOU’LL HAVE TO SPEAK UP! MY HEARING’S NOT WHAT IT USED TO BE!”

Perhaps there was such a thing as being too old to do your duty, though.

“WE ARE DEBATING,” Chayton practically shouted, drawing the attention of some of their nearby tribesmen. “WHICH PATH TO TAKE THIS YEAR. SPRING OR SUMMER. WE’RE DEADLOCKED. YOU HAVE THE DECIDING VOTE.”

Heng swore he heard more than one of the nearby tribesmen groan.

Wapasha gave them an odd look, and then he shrugged.

“Tradition is tradition,” he grunted, and then didn’t say more.

It looked like they were taking the Spring path this year.

“Well,” Elder Chayton sighed as another unsatisfying vote came to a close. “That’s decided. Is there anything else we want to talk about today?”

“Aye,” Elder Chaska spoke up. “I do. Earlier, I brought up the Tusk-Beast. Chieftain, you would say it follows your orders now, yes? Like the hunting dogs do?”

Heng blinked, caught off guard by the question. “I wouldn’t say like the hunting dogs, exactly. But Mohu seems to be able to understand me, at least a little bit, and she’ll follow some of my commands. Why do you ask?”

“When the Tusk-Beast first arrived here, we allowed you to keep it, because you promised you could tame it, like we once did the wolf. You succeeded,” Elder Chaska nodded in recognition. “However, when our ancestors tamed the wolf, they did not merely tame one. They tamed a great many. They tamed so many that even to this day the ancestors of those first wolves are the loyal companions of every tribe in the world.”

“So… you want me to find more? I’d be happy to, but I’d need some help. I’m not exactly the tribe’s premier tracker, you know.”

“Well, yes, taming more would be good. However, your Tusk-Beast is a female, correct?”

Heng nodded slowly.

“Then I believe it is high time you put it out to stud.”

Heng’s eyes went wide and his jaw dropped, all sense of decorum lost as he stared at the other Elder in shock. “You want me to what!?”

“We want you to find another Tusk-Beast and breed her, Chieftain.”

“Ah, I see,” Elder Chayton mused, tapping his chin. “There’s always the chance that a wild Tusk-Beast will be unruly and untamable. But a child of a tamed one could easily be tamed in turn. I admit, I’m somewhat ashamed it hasn’t occurred to me until now.”

“Hell no!” Heng exclaimed angrily, crossing his arms in an ‘X’ shape. “Mohu is far too young for something like that! She’s a sweet little princess, not a… a breeding stud!”

“Please, Chieftain Heng, see reason,” Elder Chayton sighed. “You sound like an overprotective father complaining about his daughter’s first lover. Your Tusk-Beast is twice the size of a man grown. If she isn’t old enough to have children, then when will she be?”

“That doesn’t mean we’re just going to… to throw her out to all those lesser mammoths all willy-nilly!” Heng exclaimed, gesticulating wildly. “She deserves only the best! Nay, the best of the best! Her mate can only be the premier example of every mammoth to ever live! Anything else would be an insult to not just her, but to our very tribe!”

“Wow, is this what our children are going to have to deal with?”

“Ah, Chieftess Wachiwi,” Elder Chayton smiled at the newcomer in relief. “Might you help us talk sense into your husband? He seems to be… out of it today.”

“Our children!?” Heng whispered under his breath, clutching his cheeks as a massive blush spread across his face. “Our… children…”

“…I see what you mean,” Wachiwi noted dryly. “Unfortunately, there’s a pressing matter I needed to speak with the Elders about.”

“Oh?” Elder Hotah raised an eyebrow, blowing another puff from his pipe. “What is it, then? Has there been some sort of dispute?”

“No, nothing like that, it’s just…” she trailed off. “Some of our scouts ran into another tribe. One calling themselves the ‘Scarlet Tree Tribe.’ They seemed amiable enough, and yet…”

The three cognizant elders frowned deeply, and Heng, returning to himself and suddenly feeling like he was missing something important, spoke up. “Um, what exactly is wrong? If they seem friendly, then what’s the problem…?”

“The problem, Young Heng,” Elder Hotah puffed on his pipe in frustration. “Is that we Elders have never heard of a ‘Scarlet Tree Tribe.’ Over the course of my sixty some odd years of walking these plains, not once have I ever met a tribe named such.”

“Well… couldn’t they be an offshoot?” Heng suggested. “Could they be a new tribe that split from an old one once they got too big?”

“No,” Elder Chayton shook his head. “The way the tribes are named is simple, but consistent. A color and an animal. When a tribe gets too big, it splits in two, with the animal staying consistent while the color changes. For example, before you tamed the Tusk-Beast and renamed us to the ‘White Mammoth Tribe,’ we were the ‘White Bison Tribe,’ who had once split off from the ‘Blue Bison Tribe.’ However, I have never heard of a tribe named after a plant of all things, and I’m not even sure what ‘scarlet’ is.”

“Well, scarlet is a color between orange and red,” Heng offered, before frowning. “But if we were renamed, don’t you think it’s possible that this other tribe could have been renamed as well?”

“Our scouts came to a similar conclusion,” Wachiwi nodded. “One of them said they recognized a cousin amongst the tribe’s inhabitants, though of course that means little. However, there was one other thing that the scouts found odd. The chief of the tribe—they said he reminded them of our own Chieftain.”

Heng suddenly felt his mouth grow dry. “…Did they give a description of him?”

“Yes,” Wachiwi nodded, frowning. “An alien man, with pale skin and hair the color of blood. The people of the tribe say that he was sent by the gods, to lead them into a new age, and that he once fell a thousand feet and emerged unscathed. They believe he is immortal.”

“…So he is like me, then,” Heng whispered. “Another one of us.”

The Elder’s eyes turned to him. “Wait, there are more people like you!?” Elder Chaska asked incredulously. “I thought you were the only one!”

“No, there are still many, many others like me,” he muttered, before turning back to his wife. “Wachiwi, would you mind setting up a meeting between our two tribes? If we know about him, then he likely knows about us. And… I’d rather we try and keep things as peaceful as possible.”

Wachiwi gave him an indecipherable look, before nodding resolutely. “By your order, Chieftain.”

“Thank you,” he nodded back. “Now, if the rest of you will excuse me… I have some thinking to do.”

Walking back to his teepee, Heng was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of the number in the back of his head. The number which, over the course of the past two years, had been steadily ticking down.

“…I am not a religious man,” Heng murmured to himself, “but if any god is listening, I pray this meeting is peaceful.”

It looked like his splendid isolation was finally coming to an end.

9,878 God-Kings Remain