West of January (19 page)

I had no notion what “ice” was, but I nodded solemnly and did not interrupt as he continued speaking in a very man-to-man sort of way. I paid much more heed to the way he was addressing me than to what he actually said.

Later, when I reached Heaven, I was given the explanation again, and I listened better then. Every cycle is the same. Meltwater fills the basin, eventually overflowing to create the Great River. All the folk of Vernier must travel westward during their lives, but seafolk try also to find northerly bays or small seas, for those are warmer than the main ocean. Behold and her family—and many other families—had fought their way up the salty torrent of the Great River. They had found a paradise of calm, warm water.

Eventually drainage is diverted and the influx from the wetlands ends. As the water level falls, the Great River stops running. The approaching sun begins to evaporate the March Ocean. Partly because of the increased rainfall that this produces elsewhere, partly by accident of geography, the next portion of the cycle is marked by a rise in the South Ocean, which finally floods along the Great River in the opposite direction. So the door was now open again. The seafolk could escape from the trap.

But only if they went soon. The flow was increasing as the relative level of the two oceans changed. Rapids and waterfalls would multiply until even the great ones would not be able to swim against the current. People could still leave overland—if they wanted to and were shown the road—but the great ones would certainly be trapped. Like a true seaman, I was almost more horrified by the danger to them than by the risk for humans. Ultimately input from the Great River would be unable to keep pace with evaporation. The March Ocean would become a desolate salt flat.

The angel stopped talking then and stared along at the seafolk, who were beginning to gather near the bonfire. The feast was almost ready. “They are indeed your children, Knobil. Your tribe. Your herd. They do not know that, but you do. It is your duty to save them.”

“What must—what can I do?”

His steel-bright eyes came back to mine. The bony planes of his face shone with sweat, like mirrors. I sensed again that strange intensity.

“This happens every cycle. Usually there is a disaster. When there is not, it is because the great ones have been told. The records say that the great ones can speak to each other across the whole width of the ocean. You must warn them, and they will round up the seafolk.”

I stared at him in dismay. “I cannot speak to the great ones!”

He was surprised—and skeptical. “But you ride them? How can you hunt with them if you can’t speak their language?”

“Hunting is easy. Oh, I know some signals and a few words. I can understand a little of their song, but anything complicated, like what you want—that needs three people.”

“Why three?”

“To make the harmonies.”

He frowned, as if he should have remembered that. “Well, you could ask two other to help you, surely?”

As a callow youth I had cared nothing when I saw the herdfolk die, and there had been no way I could have helped them anyway; but these were my friends—and my children. I wanted to save the tribe, and I also wanted to please the angel. I watched the seafolk as they laughed and frolicked in the surf, then I turned away. I avoided the angel’s eyes and stared down instead at the bony shins protruding from his boots.

“I don’t think so, sir,” I whispered.

“Why not?”

“I can tell my mount to dive, or turn, or find seals or sunfish—but I don’t know any of the words you want. Not that they really have words—they speak in chords and in rhythm.”

“But can you not then ask three to speak for you?”

“I could ask…”

“So…?”

“I wouldn’t know what they said,” I mumbled, still glumly studying his feet. I could guess what sort of message would be passed—squirt Golden, dunk him, swim him around in circles… If the seafolk did not want to admit the truth of the angel’s warning even to themselves, they would certainly not tell the great ones.

“There must be some you can trust, Knobil? The women?”

I did not reply.

Brown turned again and studied the crowd on the beach. “Widows I can understand—I know their ways. But I see at least six pregnant wives over there. Obviously you’ve talked yourself into enough beds—”

“Not so! They talk me into it! I won’t go to a wife unless her husband asks me outright.”

Brown said nothing until I looked up. Not liking what I saw, I quickly dropped my eyes again.

“You are not exactly brimming over with tact, are you, herdman? You make them beg?”

“Ask! Just ask.”

He grunted. “I expect it feels like begging. Name of Heaven! ‘Please breed my wife because I’m not man enough’!? Couldn’t you have just settled for a hint or two? You don’t leave them much pride, do you? You think they can’t tell straight hair from curls as well as you can? Do you gloat much?”

He did not expect a reply, and I squirmed in silence. Then he sighed. “Well, I shall keep trying. There must be many other tribes, and perhaps I can convince one of them to tell the great ones in time. The records insist that it is the only way.”

I did not know who “the records” were, but obviously he listened to them and thought them wise.

“There is another possibility,” the angel said. “It is a faint chance. The Great River is not far from here—I think you could almost make it in one ride, without a sleep, because the great ones travel much faster than my chariot does. If you were to go upstream as far as the worst rapids, in the mountains, and then come down again… I think your mount might understand. They are very smart, you know. They could taste the better seawater coming in. You might have to do it twice—to show them that the flow was getting faster. It might work.”

“My wife is going to have a child—”

“Your wife is going to
die.
And all of your children. Or don’t you care about them? Is hot groin all you’re interested in?”

I clenched my teeth till they hurt. Someone shouted my name from the fireside and others called for the angel. I forced myself to look at him again.

“There might be another way.”

He regarded me warily. “Go on.”

“There is no one in the grove at the moment—no one at all.”

“You can’t be certain of that.”

“I am. I counted. I’m always counting. They stray worse than woollies—”

“What are you thinking?”

“If they lost their home right away, while you were still here to lecture them again—then they might listen? I could run down for a swim.” It was so hot that everyone was taking quick dips to cool off. “No one would notice if I slipped out to the grove. I have tinder and flint at my feasting place—”

“Did you ever see grassfires in your youth?”

“Of course!”

He nodded. “And you fought them with backfires? Woollies themselves are fireproof, so I’m told—”

“I could be back here before anyone noticed. Then we could organize a rescue, to save the tools and clothes and things—”

“No!” His voice cracked with the finality of a club hitting a seal’s skull. Again I averted my eyes from the expression on his face.

“Why not, sir?”

“First, it would be violence, so I will not condone it. People must be able to trust angels. In fact, I shall stop you if you try—you know that I have that power?” I remembered Violet slaying the tyrant; I shivered and nodded. Again there were shouts for us from the feast.

“Secondly you’re judging by grassfires, which are relatively harmless. That grove is a dry trelliswork, packed with dead leaves. It would explode in one big roar of flame. You would save nothing. You would leave the tribe not merely homeless but destitute, with no possessions at all. Forget that, Knobil!”

Sparkle was heading toward the chariot, plodding heavily along the shiny shingle.

“My wife is coming to tell us the meal is ready, sir.”

“What will you say to her?”

“That we are coming?”

“And what will you say to her when she comes to tell you that the stream has stopped flowing? Well? Look at me, damn it!”

This time his gray eyes held me as if he had nailed me to the side of the chariot. No water? The children could die of thirst while we searched for another stream. The tribe kept no emergency supply, and of course we ought to be doing that, but the seafolk never would do anything so strenuous, not even after this warning.

His stare was a challenge—to my courage, to my manhood, to every stitch of the self-respect he had just rubbed threadbare.

I licked my lips and surrendered. “I’ll try, sir.”

He smiled in triumph and held out a hand. There was a small triangle of leather lying on his palm: brown, yellow, and white.

“Your third!”

I took it and was committed, and I wanted to weep.

─♦─

I wiped my mouth and tossed the remains of my blackfish into the surf. The whole tribe was sitting in one long line in the fingertips of the sea, listlessly debating the problem of ferrying the children back to the grove for the singing. A dozen girls flocked around the angel.

“I am going away,” I said.

Sparkle was cracking a crawler leg for Merry. Her head twisted around to me. “No!”

“Just to look at the Great River. A few sleeps, is all.”

“No! Not leave me!”

“It’s very important, dearest. The angel is right. We are all in danger.”

She patted my knee. “Stay till after baby. Then go.”

“That might be too late.”

Alarm flickered in her eyes. “After angel leaves, then.”

“No. Now.” I did not think the angel would go before I did.

Suddenly she looked angry, as if I were being a foolish child.

“Must wait at least for singing!”

I had meant to wait for the singing, and had she reacted differently, I think my resolution would have collapsed altogether. Instead her sharp tone made my own terror flare up in petty rage.

“Dark hell the singing! Now! You can eat at Sand’s place while I’m gone.” I trusted Sparkle to be faithful to me, and she was much too pregnant not to be.

Sparkle glared. “Taking who with you?”

“No one. If I wait for anyone else, I’ll never get away.”

“Stupid to go alone!” she shouted, and she pushed Merry aside as he tried to climb on her lap. Unaccustomed to such rebuffs, he burst into tears. We were attracting attention. “Is your rule—not go alone!”

“I’ve asked them!” I had asked at least a dozen of the seafolk and had heard a dozen different excuses. Even a herdman can take a hint if he’s thumped hard enough.

Suspicion settled over Sparkle’s face. “Did give token?”

I nodded.

“So going to Heaven?” She was starting to shout. “Pilgrim again? Again want to be angel? Visit camps and tribes and meet lots of nice girls? Tired of being father and husband?”

She was hugely pregnant and miserably uncomfortable in the heat. I should have made more allowances, but I was on edge, too, and I was still under the spell of the angel’s flattery.

“No, not that. I told you I’m coming back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t! Stay away!”

“What?!” I howled, as she heaved herself unsteadily to her feet. “Sparkle! You love me. You said so!”

And I truly believed that I loved Sparkle.

“And you? If loved me, would not go! First Pebble, now Golden? Soon have married all the men. Think Whistler is old enough for next?”

I rose also, trying to explain the angel’s plan, but she would not listen. Soon we had a shouting competition going, while the rest of the tribe watched in horror. I could send another in my place, she said. I was a herdman who did not like his possessions talking back to him. If I really loved her, I would not make wave with all those other women. I must not forget to kiss Surge goodbye—how did she know about Surge?

“And big kiss for Salty, also.” She turned her back on me.

I was supposed to put my arms around her at that point.

I didn’t. Of course she was frightened, and seafolk did not know how to handle fear. Now I see that. Then I did not.

I also was afraid and now ashamed, too. I pushed past sobbing children. I strode away into the surf, without a word and without looking back. I should have been more understanding. I should have explained better, but I did nothing that I should have. Like a petulant child, I just walked away. It would have made no difference in the end, but it is another of the great regrets of my life.

—2—

F
RITH WAS A FULL-GROWN MALE NOW
, almost as large as Gorf. He had a mate, Pfapff, who came with us, and three or four other great ones kept us company for a while. I carried two water bottles, a knife, and a net. I wore a hat and pagne, and my amulet contained three angel tokens. In my throbbing angry head was a muddled account of the geography, given me by that rawboned, steely-eyed angel.

I hated him.

The great ones were still excited, and I am sure that their discussions were booming to and fro across the ocean. Having to stay near the surface, Frith would not have been able to hear properly, but the others listened to the long-range talk and repeated it to him in their local chatter—or so I believe. I may be wrong, for neither saint nor seaman fully understands the great ones.

I was weary and sunbaked when members of another pod came leaping and spouting to meet me and lead me to one of the other tribes that Brown had mentioned. Their grove had long since vanished, and they camped in cheerfully ramshackle tents on steaming sand by a stream that I noted glumly to be even smaller than ours. There would be no refuge here for us if our water failed.

I was given food and a place to rest. I was not told whose home it was, and I slept alone. I awoke screaming. For the first time since my marriage to Sparkle, I had dreamed of Anubyl beating my mother. I had felt my nails cut into my palms and tasted the blood from my bitten lip.

I refused my hosts’ entreaties to tarry longer. Frith had waited, as I had asked him to, and we continued our journey south with Pfapff at our side. Our other escorts had departed. I did not feel the same lonely terror that I had known before. I was a seaman, Frith was with me, and he would take care of me.