Lord Tyger (9 page)

He murmured, "But why should He wait so long? I have done nothing that I have not been doing for a long time."

He hefted his spear. If this bird carried an angel, or Igziyabher Himself, the bird would have to settle down on the ground to let the passenger out. When the angel, or Igziyabher, stepped out to confront Ras, he had better be prepared to dodge quickly. If he didn't, he was going to get the iron point of the spear in his belly.

Mariyam had said that angels and their Maker were invulnerable to the weapons of men. Maybe so. But they had better have hides thicker than a hippo's. Ras had driven his spear into more than one hippo. And if the being in the bird truly had a hide of iron, he would still know he had been in a fight before he conquered Ras.

The second bird became larger and noisier. It was high above Ras and going past him. Ras sighed with relief. Evidently
it had no designs on him.

Standing beneath it, he could see that it was different from the Bird that nested on the pillar. The wings extended stiffly out to both sides, as a fish-eagle's when it rides the currents of air. But these were not attached to the shoulders, but to the underside of the body, which in shape reminded him of the body of a fish.

Like a fish's also was the color: silvery gray. It bore markings, letters much like the letters in the books he had found in the old cabin by the lake when he was a boy.

This bird did not have the peculiar round claws that hung at the ends of the skinny legs beneath the Bird of God. It did not have any legs or claws. Perhaps these were folded up and held close to the body, hidden in the feathers, as they were with many of the small birds when they flew.

It shot above him at a height even above that of the pillar, which must rear a thousand feet. The Bird of God had changed its course now and was heading straight for the intruder. The two were on a level with each other and closing in swiftly. They were about to meet over the low hills just south of the lake when the stiff-winged bird lifted its left wing and veered to the right. It completed a half turn while climbing, continued to go up, and then turned back toward Ras. The Bird of God flew upward at a slant on the trail of the stiff-wings.

Sunlight flashed off the front of the intruder and of the front of the Bird of God. For a second, Ras saw two flashes of red from something dark sticking out of the side of the pursuer.

Then they were overhead, and the chop-chop-chop and the growl of the second bird mingled. Abruptly, flame gouted from the rear of the stiff-wings and smoke bannered out. The
stiff-wings turned again and headed straight for the Bird of God. This whirled and went back to the north. Then it turned again as if pivoting on an invisible pin.

The flames leaped out from the stiff-wings. Its roar rose and fell as it climbed up above the Bird of God. It rose almost straight up and dived down away. The black things were sticking out of the other side now, but Ras could not see any red spurting from it. It dropped swiftly, then shot off at an angle. The flaming bird twisted with it, still coming fast. Something black fell from its side, turned over and over, then shot out a small black object. The small object unfolded as a flower unfolds and became a great white bloom. Below it hung the figure of a human being--or of an angel. The white flower and the body drifted southward, falling slowly, carried with the wind.

Ras had wanted to see where the angel hit the ground. At that moment, however, the change in sounds from the two birds made him turn to look at them. The stiff-wings, a bloom of fire with petals of dark smoke, had caught up with the Bird of God. It flashed by on its side, wings perpendicular to the ground, and one wing struck the whirling wings of the Bird of God. The stiff-wings flew into pieces; the Bird of God staggered and began to fall.

Immediately thereafter, the stiff-wings exploded. A ball of scarlet, it swelled. and enveloped the Bird of God. Then the ball had gone by and was falling. The Bird of God was falling also, but more slowly. A black figure hurtled from it, and presently it also bloomed and a human figure was swaying beneath the flower, which was a bright yellow.

Ras could see that there was still a man in the belly of the Bird of God. He rose from his seat and leaped through the
opening in the side and out into the air. He flamed as he fell.

There were many small white objects floating from the wounded side of the bird. They streamed out like loose feathers and began to dance back and forth, coming down slowly. They floated out behind the Bird of God; they were rectangular beads strung on blue threads of air. The threads disintegrated and the beads were everywhere. And when the lowest came close enough to Ras for him to see them, he knew that they were sheets of paper, like the pages of the books in the old cabin.

The Bird of God gave birth to flame with a bellow of anguish. It passed overhead, still streaming paper now, but burning paper. The last man to jump from it struck the ground beyond a tree a hundred yards away from Ras.

The first to jump was about four hundred yards away to the southeast and near the jungle. Ras watched the figure and then shouted with surprise when long, yellow hair floated out from her.

Yellow hair?!

"Your wife will be white and perhaps she will have yellow hair," Mariyam had said.

Ras had thought this strange. He was not sure he would like yellow hair.

"It is written that you will have a wife," Yusufu had said. "But there is no promise that she will have yellow hair."

The Bird of God brushed against the tops of the trees to the southeast and blocked off his view of the yellow-haired person. It crashed with a great noise, and flames shot up, and screaming birds flew up, so numerous they were like specks of pepper. Pepper in the eyes they were, because if the yellow hair was still
falling, she was curtained off by the birds. Smoke poured out from the trees then and obscured the birds also.

By now, the being beneath the yellow flower was also out of sight. Ras started toward the flames but stopped, his spear held before him. A leopard had burst out of the jungle and was bounding toward him. Its ears were laid back flat, and it was snarling.

"O beautiful with Death, you will have a mate today!" he shouted. "My spear!"

The leopard bounded past with not a glance at him. Behind it came three tiny, twist-horned antelope, a long-necked serval cat, and a mongoose, all running shoulder to shoulder and paying no attention to anything but the terror that had also driven the leopard. Ras laughed and ran on, though he still held his spear ready. The beasts were not going to heed him except as an obstacle to their flight.

He passed through the thick brush and under the branches of the vine-strangled trees. No more animals rushed out of the jungle. He smelled smoke and presently was crouched behind a bush near the bank of the river. The Bird of God had struck a dozen branches and broken them off and then had smashed into the soft mud. It burned not three yards from the water. The bushes near it blackened, and their leaves curled up. Some caught on fire, which would have made Ras very uneasy if this were the dry season. There was little chance that the bushes beyond would also catch fire.

The Bird certainly was not flesh and blood and feathers. It was made of unknown material and of iron. It would be too hot for a long time for him to investigate, so he decided to search for the yellow-haired person. She--he was thinking of the person
as she because of what Yusufu had told him--must have fallen on the other side of the river. At this point, the river was two hundred yards wide. It was also so close to its origin in the lake that the waters would be too cold for the crocodiles. Besides, he doubted that any would have stayed in the neighborhood after the noise the Bird had made. A crocodile would have scooted on down the river like a fish, propelled by panic-shot excrement.

Ras walked down the sloping banks, noting in the mud the webbed imprints of a giant water shrew. The sun had not reached this side of the river yet, so the mud was cool as it squished between his toes. The water was cold when he dived into it; he swam on his side, kicking his feet and stroking with one hand while he held his spear, bow, and quiver up above the surface with his right hand.

On the other side, he walked straight westward but looked intently on both sides. The underbrush was not thick here because of the pale darkness cast down by the many vine-matted branches. A bush here seldom or almost never felt the kiss of the sun, lord of life; the growths that survived had to inch painfully and weakly up the trunks of the trees that were killing them until they reached the thin area, where the sun blessed. He could see about a hundred yards on either side of him, although the yellow-hair could be behind one of the huge trunks.

It would not be so easy for the great white bloom to be hidden.

He had gone several hundred yards from the river when he gave a low cry and leaped into the air. He slapped at his legs and feet to knock off the black ants biting into him. They were everywhere, merging with the shadows, swarming, intent on
their drive toward an unknown goal. They formed a column that spread out between him and the interior. He retreated and then tried to walk parallel with the living blanket on the soil. He would get ahead of them and cut across them and try to come around the other side. But after he had covered a mile, he realized that the army might stretch for several more miles. Meantime, the yellow-haired angel must have been forced by the same ants to go westward.

"Angels have wings," his mother had said.

"Why doesn't the angel in the Bird's belly have wings?" Ras had said.

"Because angels often go down among men to find out what's going on or to deliver a message from Igziyabher. When they do that, they take off their wings and hang them on a hook."

"Yes, but the angel in the Bird's belly isn't pretending to be a man. Why doesn't he wear his wings?"

"How do you know he isn't? Have you been close enough to see if he has wings?"

What would an angel do when stranded on earth without wings? Would Igziyabher come after her Himself, or would He send some winged angels, or another bird, to lift her up and take her back to Heaven?

He prowled on, unwilling to give up and hoping to come to the head of the army. Another thing about angels occurred to him. Sometimes, his mother and father spoke of them as if they had no sex.

"They are as smooth between the legs as your forehead," Yusufu had said. "When Igziyabher wants more angels, He creates them."

"Out of the fire of the stars," Mariyam had said, eager to explain the workings of the world and of God. "He keeps making new angels from starfire, and so, some day, He'll use up all the stars and then the skies will be black, and the End of the World will be near. Pray then, son, pray, because the God of Wrath..."

"Shut up, Mariyam! You know better than that!" Yusufu had said. "There are ears that hear and hands that take vengeance because of what some liars say."

Ras had had many questions that day, one of which was about Mariyam's earlier story of the angels coming down and mating with the daughters of men. If the angels had no sex, then...

He stopped walking. A sound like the snapping off of a large branch had come from his right. It was not quite like a branch breaking, so he had no way of knowing how far away the origin of the sound was. There was something sinister in it.

The cracking was repeated, though this time it was not so loud. It did come from the same direction.

A woman screamed. Another cracking, followed by a man screaming. Then there was silence.

Ras hesitated, shrugged, and ran as swiftly as he could through the ants. He traveled a hundred yards before the first of the ants closed their pincers on his feet. He gritted his teeth and ran on. If he stopped to scrape them off, he would just be attacked by a greater number. Now that he had made his decision, he could not change his mind. Rather, he would not. He would keep running, no matter what the agony, until he reached whoever was screaming. He was not fool enough to run directly up to the people who were making the noise; for all he knew, they might not be the angels but Wantso. He doubted that the
Wantso would dare come this close to their Land of the Ghosts, but he also knew that their actions could not be predicted. The Wantso, like his parents, were always doing unexpected things, some of them stupid.

Moreover, the angels might be dangerous in some unknown manner. There were the cracking sounds, which for some reason prickled him.

When he thought he could no longer endure the little fires on his feet and legs, he saw the first angel. He lay on his back, arms outstretched, his jaw dropped. He was black with ants, but when Ras, hopping around him, brushed some ants off his face, his face was red. The skin was eaten away, and the red muscles stared at Ras. The hair, however, knocked free of ants, was brown and straight. A peculiar object of metal lay beside the right hand of the corpse.

Ras could not tarry to investigate. If he did not get going, and swiftly, he would be as dead as the angel--if it was an angel. The corpse looked too human. Also, could angels die? If they could, who could kill one besides another angel, a fallen angel, Satan's legionnaire?

There was no more thinking about that then. The agony of the stings burned away all thoughts. There was only the frantic desire to get away.

He ran for two hundred yards, dodging around the bushes, leaping over fallen trunks, until he decided that he could no longer withstand the urge to scream. He was already making so much noise that he could be heard half a mile away. Moreover, he doubted that anybody would be hidden in ambush with the ants swarming over him.

He screamed, and then he saw the creek ahead of him, and he spurted forward and dived headlong into the waters. He rolled over and over in the mud of the bottom while he scraped away at his feet and legs. Mud rose to dirty the water, mingled with the tiny crushed bodies. He lay still for a while after that, watching the stream clear itself, and grateful for the relief given by the cold waters.

When he left the creek, he picked up his spear and bow, which he had thrown on the opposite bank just before dropping into the creek. His quiver had to be taken off and upended to dump the water out. The feathers were soaked and muddied.