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.He is your great near-uncle, and I must ask you, since youkilled the first seal and it is your privilege, will you do the honor?""Why does he live alone?""He lives alone," Yuri said, "because he committed a great crime long ago, and no one wishes tolive with him.He is the other 'Old Man of the Cave.'" "Did he murder someone?" I asked."No, it is worse than that.He lived when he should have died.When it was time for him to make thegreat journey, his father became filled with the volcano spirit and saved him from the death-by-ice.And is it not said that many try to die too late but few too soon? We are obliged, are we not, to die atthe right time? Well, this man did not die at the right time.He was born a marasika without legs, andwhen the midwife tried to smother him, his father beat her and stole his son back to life."Yuri's story seemed achingly familiar.I tried to ignore the shouts of all the happy people kicking upthe snow and swarming around the meat, and I asked, "What is this man's name?"And he covered his eyes with his scarred hand as he said, "His name is Shanidar, son of Goshevan.Goshevan, who killed my grandfather, Lokni, for trying to prevent this crime.Goshevan came to theDevaki to live, but when his son was born without legs, he stole Shanidar away across the eastern iceto the Unreal City where the shadow-men made him new legs.And when Shanidar had grown to be aman, he returned and said, 'I am Shanidar, and I have come to live with my people" But everyoneknew it was too late for him to live, and so my father, Nuri, told him he could spend the rest of hisdays in the chamber off the side of the cave."We walked into the cave and he pointed at a long, dark gash in the cave's wall behind the huts of theSharailina family.I assumed it was a side vent leading to Shanidar's chamber.He blinked his eye andsaid, "Now he is an old man who cannot kill his own meat.And who can blame him? He is a littlecrazy from the hell of the living-death, this poor, lonely man named Shanidar."I nodded my head as if it all made sense."Meat must be taken to Shanidar so that he does not make the double crime of dying too soon."I nodded my head that this was so."Shanidar would be eager to hear the story of your journey across the southern ice because hehimself has made a long journey."I nodded my head very slowly and asked, "There is no one else to fetch his meat?" I did not want tosee this old man who had once known the cutting shops - and other sights - of the City.Yuri sighed."The honor usually falls to Choclo.But tonight, I must ask you: Will you take Shanidarhis portion of this beautiful meat?"I tried looking through the side vent into Shanidar's chamber, but I saw nothing except blackness."Yes," I said, "I will take Shanidar his meat."I piled some hunks of meat together and wrapped them in a skin.Through the side vent of the cave Iclimbed, stumbling against blocks of rock projecting from the upward-sloping, black floor.The wallswere cold and close around me.I bumped my head on a blade of rock and cursed.Ahead of me andabove was a faint yellow glow, as of coldflame lighting a distant window.Somewhere water wasdripping; the plip-plop was too loud and very near.I smelled wet rock and a sickly, sweet aroma thatmade my throat gag and clutch.From the walls of rock surrounding me reverberated a moaning thatwas at once full of irony and sorrow, pity and pain.Occasionally the moaning would break into ahigh-pitched ululation and then soften to a sing-song gurgle.I drove myself upward towards thispitiful, demented wailing, dreading what I would find.I wondered that the fabulous Shanidar shouldstill be alive.He must be very old, I thought, very old.But what can a young man understand of old age? How to understand the aches and fears, thenostalgic looking backward to the days of youth? Although I had been among many old men - Soliand the timeless Timekeeper came immediately to mind - their oldness had been transmuted by thearts of civilization; they were old souls brought back to young, vital flesh, men who had tasted little ofdecrepitude or helplessness.And I, too, was a civilized man - of the slow death of shaking limbs andcankers and sudden lapses of memory I had no wish to know.I had never before seen a truly old man.He was sitting cross-legged in the middle of a stone chamber so small that two men would have had trouble lying lengthwise, toe to head.In front of him burned a small, wood fire, which sent plumes ofsmoke curling up toward a crack in the ceiling high above.I could see him plainly, holding his frail,bony hands in front of the fire, watching me approach."Mallory Sealkiller," he said.He smiled at menicely, but he had no teeth."Ni luria, ni luria.I am Shanidar.""Ni luria," I said, and I dumped the meat onto a slab of rock next to the fire."How did you know myname?""Choclo, my little near-grandson, visits me often, you know.Yesterday morning, before the hunt, hetold me that men had come across the ice.Such a tale he told me.Of course, he himself likes to heartales of the Unreal City, even though he doesn't believe me when I say the shadow-men build boatsthat sail among the stars.Who could believe such a thing, hmmm? Nevertheless, it's true.I have seenit with my eyes."He carefully touched his temples and smiled again.The skin around his eyes was inelastic andheavy, drooping so much that he seemed sleepy.The eyes themselves were of some indeterminatebluish color and milky with cataracts - I did not think he could have appreciated the silvery lines of alightship with those eyes, though perhaps they were still sensitive to the rhythms of light and dark.Hewas an old, old man whose wasted lower jaw met the upper without the interference of teeth
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