The Path Walkers

By Ulf Wolf

Long, long ago, deep in the Burmese jungle—on the long eastern shore of what was to be called Lake Indawgyi but which was then named for Ei-vu, the spirit of long, sweet water—there lived two tribes:

The Mera, and the Lasi.

Their lands, as large as any among the scattered jungle peoples of their time, with the long lake as their western borders, also bordered each other, Lasi's to Mera's north and Mera's to Lasi's south.

The Lasi and the Mera, for as far back as legend could reach, had always been mortal enemies, and so they remained.

When Ea-pe created Thanai, the first man, this first man founded the Mera tribe. When Ea-pe created E-u, the first woman, she joined Thanai as his Mera bride and wife. This is what all Mera children were taught by their Yaj-Hate and his helpers.

The Lasi children, on the other hand, were taught that all Lasi stem from Thanai and E-u who were the very first Lasis and who would ever be the father and mother of their tribe. This was so because Ea-pe himself was Lasi. So preached the Lasi Yaj-Hate and his helpers.

The Mera children were also taught, over and over, that anyone who said that Thanai and E-u were not of the Mari tribe, or that they were not the founders of the Mari tribe—always referring to the Lasi, though not saying so openly—were evil and in the grim power of Bilu, the hungry ghost who cast no shadow and who ate children. It was a long-established and well-known fact among the Mera that all Lasi were under Bilu's spell, and that many Lasi children were eaten by Bilu each year.

Yes, so the Mera children were taught, and they were taught to be grateful that they were born Mera children and not Lasi children, or they might be dead and eaten by now.

Were the Lasi to lay down their weapons and acknowledge the Mera as their betters, and were they to pay tribute to Mera's excellence and superiority in all endeavors, then, perhaps, Bilu would stop eating Lasi children, but not before then.

This is what the Mera children were taught.

The Lasi children, however, all knew that all Meras were really nothing but Ngoyamas disguised as humans, cannibal demons that wished for nothing more than a sumptuous meal of Lasi child. And if they did not behave, the Meras would sneak into their village at night and carry them away for dinner.

And so, back and forth, generation after generation, went the tribal teaching of their children.

These children, whether Mera or Lasi, unless bitten and killed by vipers or other poisonous creatures, eventually grew up, all with both fear and hatred in their hearts, along with an unease at living so close to such evil enemies.

And all male children, once grown—unless selected as Yaj-Hate helper, a great honor—took up weapons and protected their borders and maimed and killed their enemy as needed, and all female children grew up to have children of their own to whom they passed on these eternal lessons about the Lasi or the Mera.

There was another tale, one whispered among those whose will to fight had begun to fade, a tale frowned upon by the Yaj-Hates of both tribes, a tale that told that when Ea-pe created the world and all beings in it, Thanai and E-u were neither Lasi nor Mera, but of another tribe so ancient that no one can remember its name. But these were just ramblings of the too-old-to-fight. Or so said the both the Lasi and the Mera Yaj-Hates. Don't listen to these fools. They know nothing. And they will soon walk the path, anyway.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ulf Wolf
• Release date: Jul 18, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301046867

Ulf Wolf

Ulf is a Swedish name that once meant Wolf. So, yes, Wolf Wolf, that's me. I was born Ulf Ronnquist one snowy night in late October, in one of those northern Swedish towns that are little more than a clearing in the forest. Fast forward through twenty Swedish years, ten or so English ones, and another twenty-four in the US and you'll find me in front of an immigrations officer conducting the final citizenship interview, at the end of which he asks me, "What name would you like on your passport?" And here I recall what a friend had told me, that you can pick just about any name you want at this point, and I heard me say "Ulf Wolf." That's how it happened. Scout's honor. Of course, I had been using Ulf Wolf as a pen name for some time before this interview, but I hadn't really planned to adopt that as my official U.S. name. But I did. I have written stories all my life. Initially in Swedish, but for the last twenty or so years in English. To date I have written six novels, four novellas and two scores of stories; along with many songs and poems. My writing focus these days is on life's important questions (in my view): Who are we? What are we doing here? And how do we break out of this prison?

Book preview

The Path Walkers

A Novella

Ulf Wolf

Smashwords Edition

October 2019

Copyright

The Path Walkers

Copyright 2019 by Wolfstuff

http://wolfstuff.com

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Contents

The Path Walkers

Contribution

About the Author

Long, long ago, deep in the Burmese jungle—on the long eastern shore of what was to be called Lake Indawgyi but which was then named for Ei-vu, the spirit of long, sweet water—there lived two tribes:

The Mera, and the Lasi.

Their lands, as large as any among the scattered jungle peoples of their time, with the long lake as their western borders, also bordered each other, Lasi’s to Mera’s north and Mera’s to Lasi’s south.

The Lasi and the Mera, for as far back as legend could reach, had always been mortal enemies, and so they remained.

When Ea-pe created Thanai, the first man, this first man founded the Mera tribe. When Ea-pe created E-u, the first woman, she joined Thanai as his Mera bride and wife. This is what all Mera children were taught by their Yaj-Hate and his helpers.

The Lasi children, on the other hand, were taught that all Lasi stem from Thanai and E-u who were the very first Lasis and who would ever be the father and mother of their tribe. This was so because Ea-pe himself was Lasi. So preached the Lasi Yaj-Hate and his helpers.

The Mera children were also taught, over and over, that anyone who said that Thanai and E-u were not of the Mari tribe, or that they were not the founders of the Mari tribe—always referring to the Lasi, though not saying so openly—were evil and in the grim power of Bilu, the hungry ghost who cast no shadow and who ate children. It was a long-established and well-known fact among the Mera that all Lasi were under Bilu’s spell, and that many Lasi children were eaten by Bilu each year.

Yes, so the Mera children were taught, and they were taught to be grateful that they were born Mera children and not Lasi children, or they might be dead and eaten by now.

Were the Lasi to lay down their weapons and acknowledge the Mera as their betters, and were they to pay tribute to Mera’s excellence and superiority in all endeavors, then, perhaps, Bilu would stop eating Lasi children, but not before then.

This is what the Mera children were taught.

The Lasi children, however, all knew that all Meras were really nothing but Ngoyamas disguised as humans, cannibal demons that wished for nothing more than a sumptuous meal of Lasi child. And if they did not behave, the Meras would sneak into their village at night and carry them away for dinner.

And so, back and forth, generation after generation, went the tribal teaching of their children.

These children, whether Mera or Lasi, unless bitten and killed by vipers or other poisonous creatures, eventually grew up, all with both fear and hatred in their hearts, along with an unease at living so close to such evil enemies.

And all male children, once grown—unless selected as Yaj-Hate helper, a great honor—took up weapons and protected their borders and maimed and killed their enemy as needed, and all female children grew up to have children of their own to whom they passed on these eternal lessons about the Lasi or the Mera.

There was another tale, one whispered among those whose will to fight had begun to fade, a tale frowned upon by the Yaj-Hates of both tribes, a tale that told that when Ea-pe created the world and all beings in it, Thanai and E-u were neither Lasi nor Mera, but of another tribe so ancient that no one can remember its name. But these were just ramblings of the too-old-to-fight. Or so said the both the Lasi and the Mera Yaj-Hates. Don’t listen to these fools. They know nothing. And they will soon walk the path, anyway.

Over the years, both the Lasi and the Mera had gathered many a fine treasure and many a sacred thing that the Yaj-Hates and their acolytes preserved and protected, and among these things holy, none was holier, nor more secret, than the path.

The Lasi had a path.

The Mera had a path.

Yes, there was the well-hidden and only-whispered-about Lasi path, and there was the equally well-concealed and only-whispered-about Mera path.

These two paths shared a purpose: to aid the feet of the old and feeble as they set out on their final walk. Only the Yaj-Hate and his helpers knew the head and course of their respective paths, and none other than they (and those headed for death, of course) ever walked the path—the Yaj-Hate, to now and then sprinkle holiness on it, and his helpers to keep it clear of rocks and twigs and to trim the undergrowth.

None other must ever know the location of the path’s head, much less walk it. Should you stumble upon it, even though the members of both tribes were strictly forbidden by ancient law to enter the jungles to the east of their lands, and walk even a small portion of it, the punishment for so violating sacred tribal law and the sanctity of the path was crushed feet. And then, once the breaker of this law grew too feeble to contribute to the tribe he or she would have to crawl the path.

These paths led to life’s end.

Once a Lasi or Mera man or woman grew too feeble to contribute to the well-being of the tribe, once he or she had become a burden to others, the honorable and expected and eventually compulsory thing for them to do was to walk the path—guided by the Yaj-Hate if you were important enough or by one of his helpers if you were not—which after much weaving through the jungle led to and wove up the side of Myiammo Taung, the holy mountain, to eventually end at a sheer rock face as high as a two hundred warriors standing one on top of each other, down which the path walkers, once arrived, and after a brief or not so brief—depending on importance—sacred farewell ceremony, threw themselves to their deaths.

At times the already dead walked the path, though walked would not be the right word for they were carried. Should a child die of sickness, or should a warrior be slain in a fight, it was up to the Yaj-Hate’s helpers to carry the dead along the path all the way up the mountain, where, after the farewell ceremony, they would toss the little, or large, corpse over the edge and onto the pile far, far below.

More rarely, the alive was carried along the path and cast across to their death from atop Myiammo Taung. These were the very young who had been born perhaps missing one finger, or with one finger too many, or with a head too large or too small, or in some other way lame or deformed since such children, according to the Yaj-Hate and tribal custom, would always grow to be a burden to the tribe, a burden better tossed down the mountain sooner rather than later. Again, it fell upon the Yaj-Hate helpers to carry these newly born distortions up the path and to then cast him or her over the ledge and into death.

No parent or relative or friend could ever follow as they parted, they had to say their goodbyes at the edge of the village, whether to their old parent on his or her own feet, or to their dead or deformed child in the arms of the helpers.

All tears had to be cried within the village boundaries.

Quite a little mountain of bewildered Lasi and Mera skeletons had, over the centuries, gathered at the bottom of the two hundred warrior cliff.

Yes, the truth was that both tribes had a similarly guarded and protected sacred path climbing the same mountain to end at the same cliff. This was well-known by the Yaj-Hates on both sides. But as for the members of the tribes—the men, women and children—each knew their path to be the only one, and none knew of the others’ path. Except, of course, for the Yaj-Hates and their helpers, who knew everything (the Yaj-Hates), or most things (the helpers).

Even so, children are rarely too serious about anything, no matter how sacred, and while afraid of the path, since they all knew that those who walked it never came back, they would often accuse each other of being so dumb that they would have to walk the path, or inform each other that if they didn’t do what they were told, their parents would make them walk the path. Mostly jokingly, but sometimes not.

Also, I should have you walk the path was a common curse among both the Lasis and Meras. Never said within earshot of the Yaj-Hate, though.

The border between the two tribes was patrolled day and night by their respective warriors, Lasi vigilance to the north of it, Mera alertness to the south. No hunter or warrior, nor member or child, would ever cross the border on purpose (unless war was intended or in progress), but often enough, either by disorientation or some other accident, a Mera would stray into Lasi territory, or the other way around. Were this to be seen by the border guards, death always followed.

Now and then—at least once a generation, usually more often—war broke out between them, and at the end of