Virginia Hamilton (6 page)

“Be well,” Duster sang. He had his simple mind, which held no thought beyond dust and Graylight; dust and Nolight. His understanding was of dust and
dark
dens; dust and packens, Siv and Glass.

The Mal sensed the unusual in Duster’s stance.
If you play tricks, I will hurt you and your kind!
Mal told him.

“Praise, be well,” Duster sang with peace of mind. “Be nothing but the same.”

There are many at this water,
said Mal.
Whence
c
ame the water? I did not offer it. Who knew of water?

“Be time for water,” Duster thought to sing, modulating to a higher key. “All be drinking. Be thirsting, nothing.”

Mal was dissatisfied. It fumed, sweeping Its force over them. It probed the kinds around the pool at random. It missed the four of power.

Mal knew that Duster alone stood on his feet. It sensed what It could not know or name; It cared to make Duster bow down. So It did what It had not done in the dustland. It raged to warn the kinds.

Flashing light struck the dust. After-images of awesome shapes were reflected in the pool. Mal brought moisture and then piercing sunlight. It roared the dust in swirls around them. It packed them in dust cocoons and broke them free, to cook them in fiery light.

Duster would not fall. His packen howled hysterically at the dark and sun and cold. Duster had no time to speak to them, for there came a downpour of cool rain. It felt delicious on his face. The Mal roared above, splitting his mind. Duster shrieked to hold on to his senses. He shrieked again and again, and found himself imitating Mal’s ear-splitting sounds.

“Be noise!” Duster sang in his strongest tenor. “Be Duster’s noise and light. A wet, like pool. Be Duster’s cool and clean!”

All felt the rain. It cleansed the youngens’ pores and skin lesions. Youngens saw their skin washed clean for the first time. Slaker beings were sleek with wet. Twittering, they shook out glistening wingspans.

The Bambnua, the Slaker Dustwalker, had landed. With a crew of females from her kelm, she had come down in the midst of the Mal’s force. She stood still on her three legs, her massive bulk and her ancient winged arms at rest.

Alien, thought Justice about the Bambnua. She viewed everything by insight through the mind of an ordinary Slaker who was unaware of her presence. She allowed herself an instant of respect and sympathy for the Bambnua. She broke off contact, feeling the Mal sweeping near.

And then the Mal was gone. The pool area, all at once, was empty of It. All of them except Duster and the four of power lay on the ground, arms wrapped about themselves, holding on.

After a time Thomas traced to the other three,
Where does Mal go when It goes?

None of them had an answer.
It’s like It no longer pays attention,
Justice traced,
when It goes.

Slowly the Dustlanders pulled themselves together. The power of the four became stronger than ever. They became visible again over the pool. They had joined hands in unity, with Justice slightly in front of the other three.

Packens and grims fell down as they had in the Mal’s presence. They were not sick this time, only frightened. Soon they could again sit or stand. Siv and Glass stood with Duster. Miacis was up, wagging her tail. Her ears fell back against her head. She was golden and smelled clean, for once. Rippling with muscle, Miacis held her tongue.

The Bambnua changed position. The move she made went unseen by them. Justice had discovered that the Dustwalker, all Slakers, had this small amount of mind control that kept them from seeing them move.

The Bambnua leaned on her leg and was in another place. She was at the water’s edge. She leaned on her back leg and was in the water. She spread her wings on the water and was at the feet of the four. She was in one place, another place and still another. Never did they see her move.

The Bambnua had never seen the four of power. Yet, from the first encounter with them, she had known when they were present. She sensed them now above the water.

YOU YOU
in a flaming in the unit’s thoughts.

i am the Watcher.

The Bambnua burst from the water. She was at the shore. She was out of the water, hugely huddled on her three outlandish legs. She was at ease, waiting. For the true power was present. What would come next would be.

YOU

The power stood over the water as it had before the Mal had come. Duster had forgotten about the four as long as the Mal was present. The four from his dream could be four thoughts or one thought; four bodies. The Mal was never body. The four were force as the Mal was force. Only, they brought no sickness, as the Mal did.

Duster signaled Siv and Glass, who trilled warnings. The grims quieted and packens grew calmer.

When Glass thought about it, she realized that grims were not completely stupid. Once they had taught her and Siv and the leader when the three had been small, Glass remembered. Grims had fed her and helped her live. She had not thought about this in a long time.

“Stand quiet, you see? Nothing be hurting you,” she toned softly to the grims. “Just be waiting.”

She touched a grim near her because she felt like it. The grim came forward. Glass regarded the wim. She was quite elderly, not strong. Glass took up her bled pouch and held it to the wim’s lips. There was blood left, and the wim drank. This caused a commotion among other grims who had seen. Glass unsheathed a weapon and toned a warning.

Grims were gluttons, she observed. Yet she had no anger toward them. And for the first time she was curious about how they lived.

Duster had been watching her. “You be well, O smooth Glass?” he sang to her.

“Be well, O Leader,” lightly she sang back.

How he pondered over Glass! Duster wished one day to call her
his
smooth. Watching her with the old wim, he saw the soft look in her eyes. Duster let it go. The power of the four enveloped him.

The unit soothed the beings of Dustland.

i am the Watcher.

The unit hummed through their minds.
Duster, Siv and Glass.

Siv and Glass touched Duster’s arms for comfort.

Think of a flat plain. A flat, dry land, think of that.

So strong was this suggestion that the image of it spread to everyone. Grims could picture a no-dust land.

Slakers saw the flat plain, empty of dust, through symbols of Slaker language.

This is your frame,
spoke the unit through mindsong.
You will fill the empty frame with all you hold in mind, with all your pictures.
Gradually, inch by inch, the frame filled.

By looking into the frame, they changed what was there. The empty plain changed. They saw a child running there. A boy, Duster. A new frame. An earlier time. There was the Bambnua, a downy egg in a dark place, ready to hatch. More images and the Bambnua was a young Slaker, unable to fly. There came an older Duster, leaving the protection of grims. There came Miacis. Although Duster grew to a youngen and the Bambnua grew, Miacis was shown through all changing times exactly as she was now.

Carefully the unit followed these time lines. It traced the small Duster back along places that appeared to be underground, until it could go back no farther. Poor Duster crying. Such a small one, alone and lost.

The unit trailed time to the place where the downy Slaker egg rested in a dark chamber. Only one way out of the chamber. The tunnels led on and on until they opened in the land of dust.

i see,
traced the unit in itself.

There came the time line of Miacis’ first instant in Dustland. There she had been set free, but she remembered nothing of it. She was content in her new land, unknowing. She was a sun-worshipper who did not know the sun as such. A violent roller storm had transported her on high soon after she entered Dustland. She had stared too long at the glowing sun and been blinded. And out of submerged knowledge she called the blinding sun Star. Miacis believed that Star watched over her, but it gave no sign.

The unit understood much.
Tunnels lead into Dustland,
it informed all Dustlanders.
But from what place do they lead?

Dustlanders were silent, unknowing.

i am the Watcher, spoke the unit of itself. Yet, even with its power, it encountered a mental barrier and it could not divine beyond Dustland.

i know this, said the unit in itself. The Mal left an aura of sickness near the ways out of Dustland. Because every time Duster ran close to one, he became sick. He had to stop and turn back.

i am the Watcher.

The unit probed for the will of Dustlanders to be gone or to stay.

The unit informed the Dustlanders,
If you wish to find your way out of Dustland, you must set out into the most remote places where you do not often venture. In the farthest places you will run into sickness. You will become ill, for you will be near a tunnel. You, like Duster, have been conditioned through sickness of Mal to stay away from tunnels. You must bear the sickness, for getting through it is the only way out.

All this time Duster stood at attention. He was alert to First Unit. He understood what First Unit had revealed.

Duster sang out, “Sickness be nothing.” He held tightly to Siv and Glass’s hands. In every trip, leaders clasped hands with leggens and smooth-keeps.

The unit spoke again in tracing.
If you go beyond the sickness, you may provoke Mal. If i help you and Mal comes, i will enrage It also. But i will stand by you.

“Deliverer,” Duster sang. “Unit, be mine.” He toned bravery and respect for the unit. “Be mine, be packens’ and olders’ and the four-legs’ and winged ones’.”

He sang of hope: “Thinking about all being safe from dust. Being safe from Mal.”

i do not know if you will be safe from Mal outside this place,
the unit traced.
If you leave here, you go to an unknown. All of you must decide if what is unknown is better for you than what is known as this dust place.

Then the gathering at the pool fell silent. Slakers, grims, youngens, Miacis—all pondered the grave decision.

The unit waited. It probed the gathering. Finding the Bambnua, it asked questions in her language of phamph-uan.
Shall your kind leave here, follow my lead? i do not know what awaits you outside of here. i do not know if the Mal waits there.

Swiftly came the reply, like searing heat in the unit’s mind:
AGES WAITING BEGONE YOUFOLLOW WEYOUFOLLOW

And gradually the gathering came to its decision. It would make ready. Miacis’ luxurious tail beat the dust. Dust rose around her, and her tail whipped about. Her blind eyes blinked and glowed with hope. With yips and eager whines, she got up, eager to follow the unit’s lead. So full of excitement was she at having the Master back again, she would follow the unit anywhere. But something more was urging her on. Something vague and troubling, some other place. She wished to know what and where it was.

There came a warning from First Unit to all of the gathering:
We will go. Let us go with caution. If there is danger anywhere, try to stay calm, i am the Watcher.

And so it began. Many drank as much water as they could hold. Others filled pouches with water—packens did this, and Slakers. That was about all the preparation any of them needed. The four with power drank deeply from the pool. They led the way, separating into their separate selves. Behind them came Miacis. Then came Duster, Siv and Glass, and packens followed by grims. Grims stumbled and dragged along. Old and sickly ones couldn’t make their way without help.

Slakers were shocking and smothering, crowded in such a large group. Their stench was awful. But they were ready to move.

Justice sought out the Bambnua among them.
i am the Watcher.

A wave of feeling rushed from her to curl around the Bambnua, who was surrounded by a clutch of females, all in a crouch. They were her flying crew, her companions on the air. Male Slakers tried to break in on the group. They punched with their third legs. The crew took the blows, shielding the Bambnua with their wings.

The Bambnua shuddered as waves of feeling spilled over her. Suddenly she was outside of her crew. She was standing before Justice. She felt the energy that had once lifted her high above the dust, where she had learned of the blue, of sky. She had learned that dust had an end. Since ancient times the quest of Dustwalkers had been to find an end to dust. This energy, this power would help her. She informed her kelm. And she informed Justice that she would fly, but that the males who could not fly might cause trouble among so many kinds.

I will place a shield between the males and all others,
Justice informed in phamph-uan.

The Bambnua seemed satisfied with this. All of the females took off and disappeared in the murk above.

Everyone followed the four. Behind Duster’s back there were choked cries. There was grief at such enormous change in their lives.

Duster released Glass from his command, to take care of grims. “Be calming them down,” he toned. And she quickly went back. She let grims clutch at her and hold her hands and lean on her shoulders. She did not mind them.

Be so touching, thought Duster. Be so close with ones—grims and Slakers!

He took a last look at the wonder of the water pool. Many turned back to look at what had quenched the timeless thirst of Dustland. Some faltered, turning back; but others urged them on and would not let them go back, at Duster’s command.

Be water mine! he thought mournfully. Strange, disturbing desires pushed forward from some deep place in him.

Be not leaving this plenty? Best be staying near water? he wondered. Water be sweet and fresh, waiting for us. Never be wanting it again.

Duster pushed it all away. Leader, strong! Hold, Leader!

In his splendid tenor he began singing of beginnings. It was his first plainsong of better times. He turned from the pool and sang:

“Praise, be leaving! Dust, be gone! Praise be you, be me! Escape!”

And their spirits lifted.

D
USTER SANG ON.
H
IS
voice was unstrained and as clear as ever after hours of singing.