FROM THE FIRES the track led them upwards, always upwards, into forest where the trees grew taller, and the light was fainter, and cloud drifted everywhere. They shivered with the dank. And then the cloud was small rain, and wind blew gently and cold and quiet.
Murrangurk raised the spear of the wordholder upright, so that it was the first thing for anyone to see, and they trod on sticks that snapped.
There are men, said Brairnumin with his body.
Do not be afraid, said Murrangurk.
They climbed all day, and the ground became stony, with black rocks lying among the leaves.
Brairnumin felt them with his feet.
We are in the axe country, he said.
Do not touch them with your hand, said Murrangurk.
They ate the food that had been given to them at the fires, but they took nothing from the forest that could be eaten.
They came to black cliffs, and walked along the sides and up into them by cracks.
Stop, said Murrangurk.
He tapped the shield with the spear: four and two. He waited.
Sit.
They sat, and did not speak; and the mountain looked at them through gaps in the cloud that the wind blew, and it was big over them and they were cold.
Murrangurk lowered his head, and made Brairnumin do the same.
The light was fading, and darkness came out of Bomjinna.
Above them, far above them, they heard the tap of a spear: four and two. Brairnumin and Murrangurk stood, and climbed.
There are fires, said Brairnumin. All the People are waiting, and the rain is on their shelters.
Brairnumin and Murrangurk reached the top of the crack. In front of them the rock was flat, and on it were fires inside the openings of the shelters. A man wearing a cloak of wolard came to meet them and took them to a shelter where there were two elders, one the age of Murrangurk, the other wrinkled and with hair all white. This man smoothed the ground with his hand, and said, “I am glad to see you, Murrangurk, but you must be gentle and hurt no one and speak straight.”
The other man repeated the words just as the old man had said them, but he was standing.
Murrangurk sat on the cleared ground, and put Brairnumin beside him. Every man of the camp was painted white.
“I am glad to see you, Billi-billeri,” he said. “And I have brought you a wolard rug, and would talk of the wolard and the kowir bags that I also bring.”
“I know why you would talk,” said Billi-billeri, “and this is Bungerim of the Wurunjerri-baluk of Jara-wait who gives my word.”
And Bungerim spoke again everything that Billi-billeri had spoken.
“You have come to talk stone of Bomjinna for axes,” said Billi-billeri, “as our People have many times talked. But so have the Mogullumbitch and the Ballung-Karar before you. The Boi-berrit have come, and the Kurnung-willam and the Kurung-jang-baluk and the Bunurong, the Baluk-willam, and the Waring-illam. The Nirabaluk, the Jajaurung, the Thagunworung and the Buthera-baluk, they have come. Even the Echuca have crossed the mountain and come; and the Meymet; and the Brabralung, they have all come. We cannot talk so much stone. We can talk no more. We cannot talk with you.”
Billi-billeri gave the wolard and the kowir skins to Bungerim, who put them down in front of Murrangurk.
Murrangurk dropped his head and wept.
“Billi-billeri,” he said. “The mulla-mullung have dreamed that the poles of bwal are rotting, and, if the Old Man does not have more stone, the sky will fall.”
“That dream we have had,” said Billi-billeri.
And he sang.
“In the Beginning, when the waters parted, and the Ancestors Dreamed all that is, and woke the life that slept, the sky lay on the earth, and the sun could not move, until the Magpie lifted the sky with a stick.”
“A stick!” said the People.
“And when the Dreaming was done, and each Ancestor made of himself churinga, our Ancestor, Bomjinna, who Dreamed all the land of the Wurunjerri-baluk, the Kurnaje-berring, the Boi-berrit, said, ‘I shall be a mountain.’”
“A mountain!”
“‘And I shall sleep.’”
“Sleep!”
“‘But, before my sleeping, I shall shit a great shit.’”
“A great shit!”
“‘And, though you may not wake me, you may take my shit as stone for axes.’”
“Axes!”
“‘They will be black and strong with the power of my shit and my Dreaming.’”
“Dreaming!”
“‘And, in my sleep, I shall also shit, and this, too, you may take for axes. But, if you eat into me, you will kill my Dreaming, and I shall shit no more.’”
“No more!”
“‘And the Wurunjerri-baluk, the Kurnaje-berring, the Boi-berrit, too, they will have no Dreaming, and they will die.’”
“Will die!”
“Then Bomjinna became a mountain, and since then he sleeps.”
“He sleeps!”
Billi-billeri ended his song. And Murrangurk wept again.
“If at once all the world comes for axes,” said Billi-billeri, “they will eat until Bomjinna is no more, and the Wurunjerri-baluk, the Kurnaje-berring, the Boi-berrit are no more, and the land will die in its Dreaming. What will it matter, then, if the sky should fall? Answer my dream.”
“I cannot answer,” said Murrangurk.
“But be cheerful!” said Billi-billeri. “You come as wordholders of peace and as guests. We shall dance and sleep, and, with the Morning Star, you shall go back with gifts of spears, and you shall be free of this land, to take roots, and berries and all that you may hunt, till you come to your own land again.”
So fires were lit for dancing, and the Kurnaje-berring sang and danced, and the best food was given to Murrangurk and Brairnumin, in honour. Then they slept; and, with the Morning Star, Murrangurk set off down the mountain, Brairnumin carrying the rug and the bags of wolard skin and kowir. And Bomjinna was quiet in his Dreaming.
Murrangurk looked at Brairnumin’s footprints.
What weight is in your bag?
Brairnumin did not answer.
Murrangurk opened the kowir bag. Inside were lumps of black stone.
I could not let the sky fall, uncle.
You have stolen the honour of the Beingalite and the trust of the Kurnaje-berring. Thief.
Murrangurk kicked Brairnumin, turned him and drove him back up the mountain, beating him with spears and shield, until they came to the fires again. The crowd that met them parted, and they passed through to where Billi-billeri still sat in his shelter. Murrangurk threw the young man to the ground, and set the kowir bag before Billi-billeri. He took out the stones softly and placed them before him.
Murrangurk went to where Brairnumin lay and thrust his spear through the young man’s thigh.
“Forgive the shame, Billi-billeri, that we have brought upon you. Take this blood guilt.”
“If you had come, and we had talked stone and not agreed,” said Billi-billeri, “it would be blood guilt enough. But it was not so. For while I sang to you of Bomjinna, the young man stole against our Dreaming.”
“I am his uncle,” said Murrangurk. “I led him to be made a man, and am leading him through the ways of his Dreaming.”
“Then you have seen that his Dreaming is small, and its ways few,” said Billi-billeri. “His step in the Dance is over. All this you have seen.”
“How shall I fill the circle of his Dance?” said Murrangurk. “His father and his mother were killed as I was killed. No one knows the place where his spirit first spoke in the womb, or where the birth blood was buried. Where shall his bones sing?”
“His step is finished,” said Billi-billeri. “He has no song. Nothing of him may return to the circle of Being. It is done.”
“No,” said Murrangurk. “There is a mist; but the Dance is not ended, and a song will be sung.”
Hold me, uncle, said Brairnumin. With my eyes I see. There is no mist. Hold me, uncle. I am your way. When you next look into me, you will remember. Dance then for me the step that now I may not. But hold me, uncle.
Brairnumin stood, and put his arms out behind him for Murrangurk to take. He bowed his head, and, with the blow of a konnung club, Bungerim smashed his skull.
Murrangurk caught the body as it fell, and cradled it.
“Take him to Morriock,” said Billi-billeri. “Let there be no blood between us.”
Murrangurk put the body over his shoulder, gave back the spears of the Kurnaje-berring, lifted the wordholder’s spear, and went down from Bomjinna.