Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
T
he stories of Old-earth are shared among the people of Old-earth. Even I, Saluez, can identify elephant and whale, ostrich and eagle, serpent and wolf, though they exist no longer. I know that they were and now are not, because of mankind. So, when I wakened under the stone on Perdur Alas to a terror not dreamed but real, I recognized the creatures bringing it upon us.
Snark and Lutha heaved me up, one on either side, and they supported me as we fled. Lutha seemed lost in some apocalyptic vision, concentrated on senses I did not share. Not so Snark. Nothing quenched her insatiable interest, or her avid commentary on each thing it touched.
“Old Tempter,” she said as we fled down the valley toward the beach. “Old Tempter sent 'em. Wanted to be sure, he did, we knew what was coming. Righteous vengeance, that's what they're after!”
Her words rang like the gong by the House Without a Name, awaking dissonant echoes, evoking monsters! The Kachis had also been sent by the tempter. They, too, had been a cacophony of bestial noises and the gleam of fangs!
“You notice Mitigan?” Snark muttered. “Mad! That man is so rageous he's about to kindle. Sure never figured he'd get beat by snakes! High-and-mighty Asenagi, with Leely spit all that's keeping him living. Has to be hard for a proud man!”
The fact that she could notice such things while we fled for our lives cut through my panic. If Snark could keep her senses during this wildness, then so could I. I concentrated all my thought and energy on calm, on focus, on breathing slowly, moving deliberately, on noticing what was happening.
It actually helped. It took me out of myself to look at the others, imagining what they felt. Mitigan, as Snark had said, was blazingly angry. So was Leelson, though probably for a different reason. Fastigats like to make sense out of what happens, but Leelson couldn't get beyond his Firster viewpoint to make sense of this! Jiacare Lostre wore a thin smile, like a seer who knows what is happening, perhaps, or someone who thinks it doesn't matter. Lutha, of course, wasn't with us at all. She stared into the distance like one ensorcelled, an inhabitant of some other world.
We halted on the beach, hemmed in on three sides by creatures, on the other by ocean. There we gasped, waiting for what would happen next. I drew the night air deep into my lungs, amazed at the feeling of it, the scent of it! Like the air of a new world! The wind came wildly fresh, with a keening mist and a bluster of cloud.
Snark leaned close against me, supporting either me or herself. Her face was ecstatic as she murmured, “Oooh, they're lovely. Like flowing gold, snakes.”
She meant it! Inexplicably, she was enraptured!
She nudged me, pointing. “And see the wolvesâit's like I can see them better in the starlight than even in full sun. Look at their fur, Saluez! Soft as clouds, full and sleek. Teeth silver sharp in those laughing jaws. Eyes two smoky mirrors full of what ought to be. Oh, you can see
Eden in those eyes! You can see a world stretching away, all green and misty! You can almost hear 'em, nose up, hollering the moon! They make me feel guilty, like Old Tempter meant 'em to, but they make me feel more than just that!”
Lutha came to herself abruptly. “Is this your paradise?” she gasped. “Are you finding it in the eyes of wolves?”
“Maybe so,” said Snark. “Are you scared?”
“I'm past being scared,” Lutha replied with a shivery giggle, half-hysterical, that built into a spate of wild laughter, quickly hushed. “Long past!”
Snark laughed with her. “Me too. This is sort of mazy, isn't it. Like a dream where you're in deadly trouble, but you go along, kind of floating, and the thing coming after you is monstrous terrible; its eyes fall on you like a horrid light; but it's righteous! You know how it's going to come out and all you can hope is you'll wake up in time or it won't hurt too much. Like that.”
I saw new shapes among those surrounding us. Wolf and serpent, yes, but other creatures as well.
“Animals,” I said to Lutha, under my breath. “What is it you've been muttering about animals?”
She hoisted Leely into her arms and stared at me over his head. “For days, over and over, I've found myself thinking of animals. They pad through my brain at night; they howl in my ears and climb my flesh with sharp claws. Is it really animals, Saluez? Or is it the ultimate Ularian, pretending?”
I didn't know. It might be the big Ularian, the tempter of Breadh, but I'd have sworn the animals were real.
That interchange was all we had time for. One wolf howled, then another. Something shadowy and immense growled deep in its swollen throat; something shambling giggled; we were stalked by ramified darkness, full of eyes. They pushed us toward the sea. Crawlers and trotters came after, chunky creatures, close to the ground, others sleek and thin, each bone showing through their dappled
hides, strung with muscles like taut cable. Sinuous tails whipped; eyes lit like lanterns; tongues licked at jaws with a rasping sound, as at our bones, scraping them clean!
We were not driven into the waves, but onto the path at the foot of the cliffs. The creatures behind us kept their distance, not pursuing us closely enough to make us run, only closely enough to make us move. There was no space to walk abreast as we went southward along the sea. Mitigan was first, carrying the lamp, then the ex-king, with Lutha carrying Leely after him. I came next, then Snark, then Leelson. Only the waves spoke as we went, but when we came around the first curve, we heard howls and growls and hisses from the beach behind us, a cacophonous laughter, as though someone had told a funny story. No doubt who the joke was on.
From behind me, Snark announced, “There's caves along here. Sea caverns. We're headed where you folks come out, where the shaggies come out.”
“Toward the vortex entries?” Lutha asked in a far-off, toneless voice. “Does it mean to herd us into the vortex again?”
Leelson ignored her question. “Tide's going out just now,” he muttered. “It won't go out forever. Do theyâdoes it mean for us to drown?”
“Probably one or the other,” said the ex-king, turning to glance at us over his shoulder. “If I were they, it, I'd want to kill us without touching us. Touching usâat least touching Leelyâseems to be fatal.”
Though I hadn't seen any of the creatures come onto the path behind us, I felt there was something there, following us. I had no sense that we were escaping. We were only moving in nightmare, not waking from it. Perhaps fortunately, we weren't able to get into a panic over it, for our footing required complete concentration. The sea shelf was narrow, uneven, littered with slippery clumps of sea grass and shells and stones that rolled beneath our
feet. And, of course, Leelson was right about the tide. When it came in, the water would come up to the path.
Snark was thinking along the same lines. “Hey, Saluez? Maybe there'll be something in it, somethin' swimming there under the rub and ruckle of the sea. Something else we'd know from olden times. Sharks maybe?”
I was spared the possibility of reply.
“Someone ahead,” cried Mitigan. He stopped, holding his lamp high to throw light on the way ahead. “I hear someone.”
We all heard it then, a woeful sound. It sounded almost familiar to me, and I remembered when we fell into the vortex. Jiacare had been right behind me, but after him had come at least three others. As we stumbled around the next curve the sound came louder, a solitary weeping over the plaint of the sea, where it fingered in, pestering the cliffs.
“It's Poracious Luv,” said Lutha.
It was she, huddled upon the path, her clothing in tatters, a muddy heap lying beside her.
“Dirty as a street rat,” Snark murmured from behind me. “Not a high-muck-a-muck now. Just a fat old woman crying.”
As she was, next to the limp sprawl of the old man. So were the mightiest brought to nothing.
“The Procurator,” I said. “That's the tabard he was wearing at Tahs-uppi.”
The path was too narrow to get to him, but Mitigan scrambled down onto the slippery seaside stones to get a look.
“Dead,” he said in an angry, wild-sounding voice. “Dead for some time.”
Leelson said hard words, striking his forehead with his open hand.
Snark whispered, “All this time they been depending on the Procurator and Poracious Luv to come to the rescue! Now they know it's not gonna happen!”
As was his custom, and as though we were unable to draw the same inference, Leelson spelled it out for us.
“Of all those who knew we had gone through the omphalos, only your colleague remains, Mitigan. He and the songfathers.”
The songfathers would do us no good. It would be easier for a gaufer to go through the eye of a needle than a songfather to admit to telling lies.
“There's my recorder,” cried Snark. “Somebody's looking at my recorder!”
Poracious raised her head and stared at the ex-king. He began to laugh and so did she, neither of them truly amused.
“By Lord Fathom,” he said hopelessly. “We rely on Thosby Anent.”
She repeated the name as though it were an obscenity. “Old Thosby! He had a watchword. What was it?”
“Vigilance,” said Lutha. “Vigilance was his watchword. Chosen more for its brave sound, I'd wager, than for its requirement of diligence.”
Snark was as puzzled by this exchange as I was, but no one took time to explain it. Mitigan and the ex-king hoisted Poracious to her feet, and we went on, stepping over the body of the Procurator. We could not carry him with us.
“Poor old man,” muttered Snark. “All his excitements is over! He wasn't such a bad old boss.”
We said nothing after that as we struggled endlessly on. Each step became harder. There was pain in my belly, pain in my groin. I felt wetness seeping down my thighs. I wept out of weakness and weariness, wiping ineffectually at the tears. I let myself lapse into dream, making up visions, placing myself back on Dinadh, sitting with Shalumn beside the fire, holding her hand in mine while our children slept warm in the hive.
The vision was ended when I bumped against Lutha, almost knocking her down. Our progress was halted. The
sky had lightened. Before us, across yet another of the ramified inlets we had stumbled along through the night, a cliff ran seaward to thrust its rocky jaw into the waves. It looked no different from the dozens of others we had passed, but this particular protrusion seemed to be special. Mitigan was gesturing with the lantern and calling Snark to look where we were.
“We sure didn't get much forrader,” snorted Snark as she climbed around me. “That's my own particular tree up there on the rim. All around here's the caves the shaggies come out of.”
When she reached Mitigan's side, they mumbled together. I saw her wave her fist at him, and she cried, “There's food up there. There's blankets and a stove. There's stuff we need.”
Mitigan's scowl was plain in the light of the lantern. “I can climb it,” he admitted.
In the predawn grayness, we could see a faint shadow trail that laddered across the cliff face. Handholds, perhaps. Foot holes. Something arduous and impossible for any normal being.
“You'll never get me up there,” said Poracious Luv.
“We don't need to get you up there,” Snark said. “When me and Mitigan can get up there, we'll lower the stuff down.”
“The tide's coming in,” said Leelson wearily.
“There's cover,” replied Mitigan irritably, pointing across the narrow finger of sea at the cliff wall opposite. There was a gap there, a black hole at the top of a rockfall, one layer atop another, almost like a wide flight of giant stairs.
No one moved. We merely stood, staring. Like gaufers, I thought.
“It's above the tide line,” Snark said impatiently, her tone urging us onward. “Get on! The seaweed tangles don't go but halfway to the cave door. It's as safe and dry as anyplace we're going to come to.”
“I might manage that,” said Poracious in an uncertain voice. She was limping badly, footsore from her many long days on the cliff path. Nonetheless, it was she who led us toward the gap, all but Snark and Mitigan. By the time we'd staggered around the cove and come to the cavern, we could see them far above, like spiders clinging to the cliff face. Day was coming. If there was something following us along the path, we would soon be able to see it.
It was not long before Mitigan came swarming down a rope and Snark began lowering bundles. The last thing down the cliff was a large jar, not unlike some of the pottery made in Dinadhi hives, followed by Snark herself. When she arrived at the bottom, she picked the jar up tenderly and carried it into our cavern before she brought anything else.
“My mother's bone jar,” she said to me, noting my curious look. “Likely I'm not going back up there. Likely there's room enough in there for me, too.”
Lutha looked up, startled. I kept my own face expressionless, though I knew our thoughts were the same. It was unlikely there would be anyone left to put our bones anywhere in particular. We, like the Procurator, would probably be washed by waves, dismembered by sea creatures, dispersed by the tides.
Snark brought us blankets and one of the little stoves, which gave us a welcome warmth and light. We huddled around it, all but Mitigan, who remained at the entrance to keep watch for whatever was coming. Something was, we all knew that, and all our eyes shifted to the entrance, then away, then to the entrance again. All we saw was the warrior sharpening his blades, a vague silhouette against the gray spread of a chilly dawn.
Poracious Luv subsided onto the sand with a moan of exhaustion, her head on her knees. I thought she'd fallen asleep, but after a moment she lifted her head and said
plaintively, “I wonder if Behemoth is out there, waitingâ¦.”
Lutha glanced at the opening, as though someone had sounded an alarm. “Behemoth,” she said in a wondering voice. “An odd word for you to use, Poracious.”