The Last Days of Pangea

Varnus lifted the veil of the entrance even more. The red-hot club leaned back. It was so dense that neither the Fireplace itself nor the slightest space inside the building could be seen behind it. The craftsman lowered the canopy and secured it almost to the very ground, leaving a small gap for traction. Under a light stream of blowing wind, the shining particles began to slowly exit through the chimney.

Women, elders, teenagers – everyone froze, watching what was happening. Rising to the sky, many lights created a continuous flow of light, a luminous whirlpool formed above the roof of the Flame Tent, and the higher the whirlwind rose, the wider its edge became. It seemed that the red-hot resin would not cease to go out and the whirlwind of glow would reach the stars. But already somewhere there, high up, the coals turned into ashes and dissolved into the night heights…

– Here it is, yes!

– Look, look! They fly to the stars!

The juveniles made a delighted noise, emotions overwhelmed the future hunters. Children enthusiastically looked at the circulation of shining grains, and their amazement and joy knew no bounds!

A light breeze blew. The pillar of the fiery vortex twisted slightly, but did not lose its shape. Only now the leader noticed that the edge of the luminous whirlpool looked like the glow of a stake in the sky, which, like particles of hot resin, flickered white. Roshan was struck by this incomparable resemblance. But suddenly the center of the stake lit up, so brightly that for a moment it blinded the first people: teenagers, women, old people – everyone who admired the fiery whirlwind at that moment – saw lightning. Covering their eyes and faces with their hands, the tribesmen groaned and groaned in shock, but immediately the dazzling glare in the gaze of each subsided, and fuss began among the relatives.

– Have you seen the light?

– What was it?

– Flash!

Teenagers began to fill up the elders with questions, trying to find out about what had happened. The adults tried to calm down the growing farce, but the juveniles, not responding to the calls, unrestrainedly asked everyone in a row who and what they saw and whether they saw something, until one of the youngsters cried out:

– Look!

Everyone looked up at the sky again. The accumulation of light in the middle of the star ring was gradually fading away, and it was noticeable how the glow measuredly moved away from the center of the circle. Soon it completely dissolved, and in place of the once shining stake, a bright, bizarre star lit up. Blazing with a red flame, it clearly stood out among other stars. An incomparable luminary, unseen before, as if alive, shimmering with shades of scarlet light, adorned the night sky.

Young people, women and sentinel hunters began to vigorously discuss the strange star, and only the leader and the elders thoughtfully exchanged glances.

Where the Great Fire was incinerated and the cold Moon hid, something unknown, visible and at the same time inaccessible, happened. And the spirits of Zavrini themselves warned the first people about this!

* eye – in the language of the first people means «eyes».

***

When the future hunters were sent to the huts, the elders and shamans made a decision: Roshan will go to the caves in the Temple of the Creator in the morning and, indulging in unity, will rise to the stars to learn the secret of the newborn manifestation. Through Her eyes to see what is inaccessible to humans. Something that no one has ever seen before…

Shelter of the first people

The Great Volcano – a mighty mountain, towering above the universe, proudly propped up the sky. A considerable part of it sometimes hid among the clouds passing by, and from below, at the pedestal, it seemed that the edges of the peaks did not exist at all. From the north, the volcano was surrounded by ridges covered with coniferous vegetation. They pierced the cloudy sky with their ends, but their greatness did not look as irresistible as that of the creation under heaven. An immense grove of araucaria stretched in a dense cover from the southeast to the foot of the mountain. She then rose to the heights, then fell deep into the ravines, creating an amazing variety of terrain. In the distance, the grove bordered only on the horizon, and closer to the Great Volcano it grew to its first cliffs, and only huge boulders, tens of thousands of moons lying at the base, in places interrupted the green cover of the creator. From all the western slopes of the mountain there was a plain. Covered with bennettitic plants, ginkgo trees, and steppe palms, it gradually grew into a liana forest in the southwest, and into a forest in the west. The north-west of the lowlands ended in a valley of wooded ridges and small jungle – the former path of a nomadic tribe.

The village of the first people stood at the southern foot of the mountain, on the lower cliffs of which underground cavities were once formed – caves, and the first people gladly arranged and settled them. Elderly relatives settled in the caves, since it was impossible to be in the camp during the day: there was a rumble of running children everywhere, militant cries of teenagers from the arena of the weapons mansion, motives of drumming, noise and other fuss were constantly heard. And the elders favored peace and quiet. But in times of heavy rains in the grottoes of the old people, it still became livelier: the buildings of the settlement could not withstand the raging elements, and the tribe more than once escaped from the tiring moisture in the dwellings of the ancestors.

From a rocky crevice under one of the high ledges, as a great favor of the creator, a small stream was beating. In some places, his fellow tribesmen directed his modest channel into makeshift canals. The channels filled leather-covered vats, wells built on the slopes. Filled wells from an excess of water through the same channels returned priceless life-giving moisture back to the stream. The channel went just below the settlement into a gorge under the slope, and here, among the vast cliffs and araucaria, the main part of the village was located.

On araucaria, the first people erected huts for juveniles. Small buildings – below a tall fellow tribesman – were given, like most buildings in the settlement, rounded shapes. For very young children, the structures were usually installed on short dense growths sticking out of tree trunks. The branches were crushed and tied with liana twine. So it turned out a stable flooring – a lead on which the frame of the hut was placed. There could be several such tales along the entire length of the trunk. The leafy cover of the flooring did not make it possible to detect buildings from the ground, and the arrangement of the floorings one above the other created shelter on the lower branches from the scorching rays of the sun and annoying rainwater.

For slightly older children, buildings were erected at the ends of large branches, where araucaria shoots gathered in dense clusters. The core of the branches was crushed, and the edges were left as is. The prepared floors for these dwellings resembled the nests of Pterosaurs. The installed frame in the center of the flooring was covered with leather soaked in fat. A layer of fat protected the dwellings from the rains, but, unfortunately, did not save them from powerful downpours. The finished hut from all sides, except for the side of the entrance to it, was enveloped by untouched ramifications of araucaria. To the huts, the hunters raised deep lime vats: in them, women made fires for cooking or heating. Huts, set in places of dense growth, could accommodate no more than four kids, and at the edges of the branches – no more than four teenagers. The children slept on soft, hay-stuffed leather bedding.

Young descendants, by the way, constantly hung their homes with all sorts of decorations and trinkets. They found, caught, begged from adults or exchanged various nonsense among themselves: butterflies, eyes and wings of dragonflies, fangs, claws of reptiles and other nonsense. After meals, they collected the gnawed bones of lizards, dried them, washed them in a stream and dragged them to their huts. Everyone decorated their halabuda with everything that came to hand.

Between the branches of araucaria hunters pulled suspension bridges. Liana twine was fixed everywhere and lowered to the ground so that it was possible to climb onto the branches not only along the trunk. It was the huts that, in the event of a sudden penetration or attack of predators on the settlement, became the most reliable shelter for juveniles. True, Chameleons – the only terrestrial carnivores – could climb trees. But from them, just in case, stretch marks from ropes with bone rattles were always installed around the trunks – ribs, ridges, fangs of small cold-blooded and other remains. The rattles warned of climbers. Fortunately, Chameleons were extremely rarely found in coniferous forests, and they climbed so slowly that it was not difficult to distinguish them from people without looking, by the sound of tinkling streamers: a constant ringing of bones – a relative climbs, a rare – Chameleon. And if the Chameleon managed to rise at least a little, then a hail of stones could always stop him, because there were plenty of cobblestones on the araucaria. But so far, neither the Chameleons nor the attacks of other lizards near the Great Volcano have yet happened.

The foot of the mountain was as if created for a permanent camp. Most of the barriers that reliably protected the settlement from reptiles turned out to be the same boulders sticking out for eternity. And between them, the tribesmen erected high fences from fallen trees on the outskirts of the grove. Horns were attached to the fences. So the hunters secured themselves from land-based predators. Winged predators – Pterosaurs and Sharp-winged birds – never appeared in these places, since the first lived on the crowns of liana forests (the closest one was far in the southwest), and the second settled in the jungle, and the path to the jungle in the north lay in the moon of walking. The small flying Pawwings, which often roamed among the coniferous forest, did not pose a threat. Therefore, Roshan, the elders and other shamans believed that this place was the most reliable in the last thousand moons of nomadism.

The village had two loopholes. One in the southeast, the other in the southwest. Both first people were locked with small barriers. The loopholes were guarded by sentinels on watchtowers, standing two hundred paces apart, between which were the huts of the hunting parties. The relatives called this place the House of Hunters.

These dwellings were rounded structures made of branches, tree trunks and dense skin. Trunks – piles – were sharpened and driven into the ground. Then, with the help of ropes and branches, the piles were tied together in a circle from above and below. The finished structure was covered with a leather cloth and soaked with fat, like huts. The roof of each hut had a hole – a chimney, so it was possible to make a fire in the hut and cook food. Around the buildings, covering a small area, the tribesmen fixed the horns. Thus, each hunter’s house was a kind of defensive outpost. Outside, the walls of the houses were painted with symbols of hunting and tribal life, and from the inside they were plastered with limestone so that the huts would not ignite from random sparks of a fire.

Hunters hung dwellings with the bones of defeated herbivores or predators who attacked during the persecution. Some leaders of the Great Hunt decorated their buildings with the skulls of slain lizards. The largest bone hung over the entrance to the chief’s hut. The head of the Gigantosaurus – a huge and ancient herbivore that the first people saw – proudly adorned the leader’s tent. And the tent itself was located on a ledge, directly above the hunting dwellings, where the base of the cliff turned into a constructed observation platform.

In the center of the House of Hunters was the armory choir. It contained training tools, robes, bone armor and other items for the growing rangers and beaters. The territory adjacent to the mansion – the arena – was much larger than that of the huts of the hunting parties. Stuffed herbivores and a predatory reptile, Razavra, stood in the arena. Similarities of such giants as Long-necked, Tail-tailed and Tolshshkur were built without paws. The shapes of the recreated bodies were sticking straight out of the ground! Hunting skills were trained on smaller stuffed animals: they learned to hit prey or a predator with a bow, club or spear; and on stuffed giants they practiced running and keeping their balance.

Closer to the southeast loophole, behind the watchtower, the first humans built storage tents with timber, selected bones for armor, rare Edgestones, leather, and other necessary supplies. A little higher, on a hill, in the shade under the cliffs, they dug earthen caches for dried meat, medicinal and edible plants and fruits. And nearby they built tents for the same purposes – women always looked for an opportunity to preserve the edibility of the slaughter as long as possible. In the tents, the meat was hung with ropes on the beams, and in the pits it lay wrapped first in burdock, and then in leather patches. In both cases, the food was stored for a relatively long time, but in the pit it was a little juicier and still deteriorated earlier than in the building. In the tent, the slaughter was drier and saved right up to the next Big Hunt!

Between all the components of the settlement – on the slopes, cliffs and unobstructed distances, among araucaria, thickets of ferns, grass and other vegetation – the tribesmen trampled out paths. Every fifteen or twenty steps along the paths, the first people drove in the lights. The craftsman Varn made special lime bowls for the lights. He fixed them in such a way that no obvious flame could be seen from the side of the forest at night. Tongues of fire attracted not only herbivores, but also predatory reptiles, and the bowls hid and reflected sources of light towards the Great Volcano, scattering warm light to the foot of the mountain.

***

«Pa, are you leaving already?» Omi asked, barely opening her eyes.

Roshan went to visit his daughter and was about to leave the halabuda, but the child suddenly woke up.

– Good morning, dear. Yes, Pa must do many good deeds of the leader. How did you sleep? What did you dream?

– Slept well. I don’t remember what I dreamed…» Omi replied. – Where is Ma?

«She’ll be here soon, honey.

The shaman, forgetting that he was in a hut, stretched himself to his full height and hit his head on the transverse base. Omi laughed.

«Chief, you are so big!»

Roshan smiled and, kneeling down, pulled the girl towards him.

«Today the leader will go to meet Pangea,» he spread his hands. «And the chief’s daughter will promise that she won’t play hide-and-seek all over the village and will listen to Ma!»

Omi smiled.

«I promise, chief!»

Suddenly, from the other side of the structure, Ana’s voice was heard:

Roshan, are you still here?

The woman climbed into the building and immediately hugged her husband.

«They are waiting for you at the Temple,» she whispered. – I brought water. Ana held out a leather waterskin. «Drink as much as you can – she will help you.» You will have strength! the huntress assured.

– Inga will prepare a decoction and there will be plenty of it…

Don’t argue with me, chief. Water is the source of life. And I will be calmer. Drink up! Ana insisted.

The shaman clung to the neck of the bag. In a few sips, he emptied the vessel and turned to his daughter:

Don’t forget the promise!

Omi nodded.

«Check the Marines, Ana!» Roshan advised. «I will try to get back as soon as possible. In my absence, Radon will be responsible. Help Varn with the Fireplace.

«Roshan, I’m afraid for you,» the huntress’s voice trembled. «Hord said no one had done this before,» she said in a whisper.

The shaman glanced at Omi: the girl was sitting on the mat and playing with Lazunov’s claws. Making sure that she was not paying attention to the conversation, Roshan replied in a barely audible voice:

Everything will be fine Ana, don’t worry. You check the main sentinels, and let them change more often – they sleep more!

– Is it a star? Why was she on fire? What’s wrong with her?

«I don’t know… That’s why I’m going to Her… The Zavrinis want us to leave this house. They are warning us about something, and this star appeared for a reason. We need to find out what is troubling Zavrini and what we can expect,» said the shaman and hugged Ana.

Ana hugged her husband tightly.

– I’m scared!

«Well, it will be for you,» the leader soothed. – I’ll be back soon!

The huntress freed herself from the embrace and jokingly threatened:

«If my leader doesn’t return, then I won’t hunt with him anymore!»

The shaman broke into a smile and, pushing back the curtain of the hut, began to get out.

So long, Pa! Omi waved.

– Bye, dear! Ana, lookouts! Roshan noted again.

The smell of dew, mixed with the pine scent of araucaria, rose over the settlement. The shaman went to the story and breathed in the freshness of the coming morning. Everywhere there was a drowsy calm, and the barely audible murmur of the stream was dissolved in the streams of the restless breath of the wind. The chirping of nocturnal insects has long ceased, and the chirping of daytime living creatures has not yet rang in succession, as if the primitive townsfolk, replacing each other on patrol, have not had time to take their posts. Among the branches on nearby trees, smoke flickered from the extinguished fires of the huts. The camp and the nature around it were immersed in slumber.

Somewhere beyond the horizon, the light of the Great Fire woke up. The ascending rays gradually awakened the ordinary world, and their enlightenments in the sky looked forward to an unfamiliar day. Roshan glanced around the settlement, and then fixed his gaze on the watchtowers: everything and everything, as before, was in its place. The leader grabbed the vine rope, deftly descended to the ground and headed towards the caves.

Soon the shaman was high above the village and, stopping at the edge of the cliff, once again looked around the monastery, untouched by predators. Deep inside, Roshan was troubled. His premonition – Zavrini’s premonition – for some reason caused excitement and a feeling of something irreparable. The leader took a closer look: several teenagers came out of the huts in the Hunters’ House. Someone made a fire, it was visible how someone’s women drew water from wells, children came out of halabuds on araucaria. Roshan tried to look for his daughter and Ana, but from the heights near the caves of the settlement, the first people looked tiny. It was hard to distinguish anyone by appearance or attire. The leader saw only silhouettes and could assume that there, at the hut he had abandoned, among the undergrowth of the trunk, Omi was playing with the child of a relative, or at the armory mansion, it seemed, the one-eyed Varn was spinning…

The shaman drew attention to the loopholes of the camp. Everything was calm. The cool morning breeze ruffled the leader’s hair with a sharp gust, and distracted by the wind from his thoughts, Roshan headed for the Temple of the Creator.

Before the pass to the entrance to the cave, the shaman was met by an elderly healer. She was dressed in a long hoodie made of the thinnest green leather, tattered in places by everyday life. Over the skin, in the area of the shoulders and the edge of the hoodie, hung decorations in the form of resinous colored leaves of outlandish plants.

Hello, Inga! Roshan greeted.

The old woman, grimacing and straightening her sparse gray hair, showed a toothless, but still fanged smile, and, spreading her arms and quickly moving her legs, went to the leader.

«Roshan, son, you haven’t gone up to the caves of the elders for a long time!» she greeted warmly.

– Inga, you know – the time of the Great Hunt has come. It was necessary to prepare the detachments for departure,» the shaman answered with sadness in his voice. – I hope you missed you?

The woman’s trembling hands touched the leader’s shoulders. Warm hugs followed. After a moment, Inga looked at Roshan’s face and jokingly patted the braid of his beard.

«And you’re already an adult!» the old woman joked, and, groaning, laughed at the top of her voice.

The smile on her face deepened the scaly wrinkles and aged the healer. It seemed that if no one knew her age, then it would be completely impossible to guess her lived moons.

«I have prepared a potion, my boy,» Inga said, laughing, and grabbed the leader by the arm. It will help you calm down and collect your thoughts faster. Hord said that spirits turned to many that night. This hasn’t happened before, has it? Do they want us to leave here? And what is this strange star that Radon told me about in the morning?

– Yes, Inga, it was so, the Zavrinis are warning us about something. And this star is also not without reason. I will definitely find out about everything! Did you hear the call yourself? Have you seen the flash in the night sky?

«No, my dear, I didn’t hear the call. But I saw how the heavenly lights were full of. Watched as the swirl of glow from the Pavilion of Flame rose above the settlement. And Varn is my smart one, right? I just didn’t see the flash… I apparently dozed off at that moment. I didn’t see the star either. Oh, old me, I’m completely blind, – the woman sighed, – and Zavrini’s eyes are no longer subject to me. Old me. I will leave you soon! Quite old…

Stop Inga! You talk more. For eternity, let the moon shine on you! Where are we without you? Who will heal us all?

«Ana will heal, son. She is already ready for the unity of the shaman.

After this conversation, the leader and the healer reached the cave. At the entrance, near the habitable places around the fire, sat Hord, Radon, and several other elders and hunters. The tribesmen were having a meal.

Hello Roshan! Radon greeted. «Would you like to eat with us?»

Radon was one of the few experienced hunters who often stayed in the settlement with his detachment even during the Great Hunt. The watchman’s curly dark hair, gathered in a ponytail, stuck out untidy at the back of his head and lay on his broad back. The fangs of lizards were woven along the entire length of the tail. An earring sat in the humpbacked nose of the hunter. The lower jaw of the man protruded slightly forward, and rough spiked growths flaunted above the eyebrows. On the chest of Radon, a scar from the fin of the Chameleon was visible, and on the right leg two fingers were missing – the tricks of the same predator. The second thousand moons shone on the hunter, and his strength was at its peak. In addition, behind the wide shoulders of the sentinel lay almost three dozen carcasses and trophies from herbivorous and carnivorous reptiles. Radon has more than enough experience in protecting the village! In the previous places of camps on the way to the Great Volcano, hunters from his squad, together with Valla’s squad, drove the Rasaurs away from the fences of the settlement twice! And the young relatives, led by Radon, constantly stood at the posts of watchtowers and bypassed the paths. Of course, Roshan did not doubt the skills and resourcefulness of this hunter, so he decided that he would be able to adequately assume the role of leader temporarily.

– Greetings to all! – honored the leader and answered the senior sentinel: – Thank you, my friend, I’m full. And I ask you to be careful. Ana, Varn and Hord will help you.

Hord nodded affirmatively.

«Yes, sir, everything will be all right!» – chewing, mumbled the hunter. Don’t worry about the village! As long as I live, not a single lizard will set foot in our abode.

«May the spirits of Zavrini help you,» the leader patted the senior watchman on the shoulder and immediately headed towards the entrance to the cave. Hord and Inga followed him.

– Roshan! – turned after the hunter. «I’m very worried about the hunting parties, Roshan. And Salas is there. Do you think what happened last night did not disturb the reptiles?

«Hmm…» the leader hesitated. «I didn’t even think about it, Radon. But I really hope that the units are all right. Has your young man grown up? Did Zavrini’s eyes appear to him? Roshan asked without remembering.

Not yet, but I’m sure it will happen soon. This is his first hunt.

«I believe, my friend, everything is fine with them!» – encouraged the leader. «Pangea and the spirits will help them!»

«Yes, chief, I hope so too. May Pangea help your soul in unity! – the sentinel blessed and immediately turned to the young hunters: – Barda, Veles, you will stay here at night, with the elders. Wisdom exercise, maybe they will tell you something interesting. And you will guard the entrance to the cave like your younger brothers! Few things can happen…

***

The road to the Temple of the Creator – to the Abode of Unity – lay through a long underground corridor. In the middle of the path, the corridor branched into a labyrinth of three channels, one of which – the one to the left – was the longest, a hundred paces. The channel led to the edge of the ledge to the abyss, and after another ten steps along it along a narrow cliff, the road again deepened into the sleeve of the dungeon. The first people once wanted to explore the abyss, but the stones and torches thrown into it were lost in the ravine, leaving neither sounds nor reflections of light. Therefore, everyone refused to descend blindly, even the most daring pathfinders. The dangerous gap along the cliff did not inspire confidence even in the most dexterous tribesmen, so this branch of the labyrinth remained in total darkness and was not used.

The approach to the Temple from the right side also turned out to be extremely inconvenient. In some places, it narrowed into narrow corridors, which either crushed from above, up to crawling, or forced to crowd between the walls, scratching on the sharp contours of the relief.

The relatives fenced off these two dubious moves. But the path that passed in the middle led along a moderate tunnel without any obstacles and slopes, straight into a huge underground grotto – the Temple of the Creator, and the tunnel was equipped only in this sleeve: the road was illuminated by lights driven into the walls along its entire length.

After some time, Roshan and his companions arrived at the place. There was light in the vast cave. A dozen torches illuminated the grotto, and coniferous incense created by Inga created a feeling of comfort and peace. Somewhere under the grotto, in the inaccessible warehouses of the dungeon, a stream splashed – the same one that was in full swing in the settlement. The barely audible murmur of the brook broke the silence of the Abode of Unity and gave the cave a mood of mystery and captivity.

On the walls of the Temple of the Creator, in addition to the knowledge that the elders-wise men and experienced pathfinders left to their descendants in the form of rock carvings and drawings of life, mystical ornaments were imprinted everywhere – symbols of the first people. Sacred symbols that were carved by hunters and shamans on fishing tools carried a special human design that influenced the spirit, capable of awakening the mysterious element of flame, which the leader Roshan once knew in unity with Pangea. He knew and taught other relatives to know. And to those who were able to master the flame and suddenly realized the carved message of the symbol, the elements gave incredible ardor, and the plan instantly became feasible!

On one of the ledges, where the stone relief was flatter and smoother, the leaders of the hunting parties drew a path to the Great Volcano, and each time after the Great Hunt they drew new explored areas. After many moons, a small sketch turned into a real map of hunting trails. It depicted detours of wooded ridges – former roads traveled, former pastures of herbivores, beds of small streams in a grove of araucaria and other landmarks. On the walls, the relatives denoted all kinds of reptiles that they met in the lands of Pangea. With the help of drawings, the tribesmen described their habits – warnings of danger and dispositions for friendliness. And on one ledge, a whole story of Zavrini was carved, which the day before was told to teenagers at the fire by Roshan and Khord. The Temple also kept relics of ancestors (including those discovered during nomadism): colorful fancy shells, which, according to the sages, were once found by the great-grandfathers of the ancestors near the northern shores of raging waters, petrified traces that an experienced hunter once noticed, broken weapons and various bone remains. True, the identity of the latter has not been established exactly.

Pointed formations – stalactites – hung everywhere from the tops of the grotto. For those who visited the Abode of Unity for the first time, the menacing stalactites aroused eerie distrust, and it seemed that the stone gouges were about to collapse on their heads. But since the founding of the Temple of the Creator, not one of the stalactites has even moved. Shamans and elders eventually got used to ugly warehouses and stopped paying attention to them long ago.

In the middle of the dungeon, the rocky terrain underfoot smoothly turned into a small island of earthen soil with a thick moss cover. A lone piece of land stood out noticeably among the stone forms of the cave and seemed to have been equipped by Pangea itself for the ritual of unity. Inga had put a leather bedding on the islet in advance, and next to the fire, the broth was cooling in a vat.

«I will inspect the fences, Roshan,» Hord warned and headed towards the dark niche of the Temple of the Shaper.

«I’m sure they haven’t moved,» the chief replied. «But still look around, I’ll be calmer.»