Deyv looked towards the horizon. A band of bright light existed along it. When The Beast had dipped out of sight, all the sky would blaze, mottled here and there by single black dots or larger black shapes. These were sometimes referred to as The Beast’s Children, the largest of which had names.
Deyv choked a little before he could speak again.
‘The time will come, you say, when the stars will be so close together that their heat or other radiation will kill all life on Earth?’
‘If the earthquakes don’t destroy it first. The influence of so many celestial bodies so close to Earth is responsible for the quakes. There won’t be any volcanic eruptions – I explained those to you – because the centre of the Earth has cooled off. One of the sources of power the ancients used was the molten nickel-steel core of this planet. They tapped it, and now the core is cold, or perhaps I should say lukewarm. Also, they mined a certain amount of the core for its nickel and iron. There wouldn’t be any significant amount of iron in the upper levels of the Earth’s strata if the metals hadn’t been brought up from the core.’
‘How long do we have?’ Deyv asked.
‘Perhaps a hundred generations as you humans count generations. That estimate is based on death from heat. I can’t predict what effect the earthquakes will have. It may be that long before the jam-packed stars blind all eyed-life and then cook it this land may be torn up and life swallowed by the cataclysms. Or this land may sink into the ocean.’
Sloosh had explained that all land was now one mass. Once, there had been a single land mass, long before man evolved, and then this had broken up into land masses. These wandered over the face of the planet, came together again, split, wandered and coalesced again. Parts of the land masses had sunk and become seas and then risen again. And so on and so on.
‘This land stretches along the equator around the planet, but its two ends do not meet. All the rest is water. Not salt water but fresh. The last ancient people removed the salt from the ocean, perhaps two thousand generations ago. It wasn’t the first time.’
At the moment, the ground felt solid, and Deyv had no sensation of moving. Yet, if what Sloosh said was right, he was falling towards the fiery doom. He wouldn’t see it, but his descendants would. Or, if he had no progeny, his brothers’ and sisters’ would.
Vana had heard all this from the Archkerri when he had resided in her tribe’s area. ‘Sloosh is very wise, and he knows much,’ she said to Deyv. ‘But he can be wrong. He is no god or goddess. My shaman said that if Sloosh were right, then our religion would be wrong. Therefore, Sloosh must be wrong.’
‘But he knows all about the past,’ Deyv said. ‘So how could he be wrong about the future?’
‘He doesn’t know all about the past. What he says about it is a pack of lies.’
‘Sloosh doesn’t know how to lie.’
‘He says! Would you take the word of a liar? But perhaps I’m being too harsh. Let’s say that he isn’t a liar but is badly mistaken. That is what our shaman said about him.’
Sloosh’s account didn’t agree with Deyv’s religion either. But he felt that perhaps the Archkerri had access to a greater power than did the Turtles’ shaman. Wasn’t Sloosh a brother to the trees and the grass? And weren’t the trees and the grass the hair of Mother Earth herself? Weren’t they, according to his tribe’s religion, also Her earliest children? He told Vana this.
She said, ‘Maybe Sloosh is right. I don’t like to say that. But perhaps, just perhaps, and may my ancestors forgive me if I speak against the shaman, Sloosh knows what he’s talking about. If so, so what? You and I will live out our lives and our children theirs and their children theirs. I can’t imagine a hundred generations. It’s too far off for me to worry about it.
‘We’ll have children and grandchildren, if we’re lucky. And we’ll eat and drink and have fun; And then we’ll all die. And the fate of the world will be no concern of ours.
‘Meanwhile, we have to find that thief and get our soul eggs back and then return to our families. And some day I’ll be an old woman, and then I’ll die. And my tribe will eat me, and –’
‘What? Your tribe will eat you?’ Deyv asked.
‘Of course.’
That she was a cannibal shocked him much more than the impending end of the world.
10
The Yawtl had made the mistake of trespassing into a village instead of robbing isolated individuals. His ghostly red trail led his pursuers to the edge of the village. These people had no House but lived in wooden thatch-roofed houses inside a tall log stockade. There seemed to be many women and children in the village and a shortage of men. A dead man lay in the centre of the village, and a shaman and the women danced mourning around him.
Deyv, looking down from a tree, noted that the corpse’s soul egg was missing. When he descended, he and Sloosh put together what they had observed. Sloosh concluded that the Yawtl had been surprised while lifting the egg. During the struggle, the man was slain. The tribe, aroused, had chased the Yawtl, and then most of the warriors had taken off after him.
The Archkerri followed the trails to the highway. Evidently the thief had fled down this road, continuing the same course. Unless he had a big lead on the would-be avengers, he would not, however, stay on it long.
While they were travelling at a faster-than-usual pace on the road, Deyv questioned Sloosh.
‘Why do you think the Yawtl went so far afield to get the eggs? Why didn’t he just pick the tribes near his area and then waylay individuals in the jungle? Wherever he lives, it’s a long way from my land.’
The huge eyes in the cabbage-head closed. After a while, they opened.
‘I’d say that he was looking for eggs of a special kind. Not just anybody’s would do. Don’t ask me what kind. I don’t know.’
The wind had shifted towards them just before sleep-time. As they were talking about retiring into the jungle, Jum bristled and growled. They couldn’t see anything ahead on the road, but Deyv knew that someone was coming.
From behind the foliage they saw the returning warriors. They were tall, long-legged wiry men with almost-black skins, very thin lips, large hooked noses, long straight black hair and dark-brown eyes. They were barefoot and wore fringed blue kilts, orange belts and human skulls on top of their heads. These were secured by straps under their chins.
Their weapons were blowguns, stone axes, spears and swords made of wooden blades with the tips of sharp stones set along the edges.
This was of passing interest. What riveted the hidden watchers was the person in the middle of the band. He was shorter than the others, of stocky build, and his body was covered with a fox-red fur. The face was near-human, though the jaws protruded considerably and the eyes slanted. His ears were like a wolf’s. The pale-red face itself was hairless except for a broad black furry band across the reddish eyes. His nose was as round and black as Jum’s. He wore a black breechclout and, if he had had any weapons, they had been taken from him.
His hands were tied in front of him.
One of the warriors was carrying a leather bag. This must contain the soul eggs.
Deyv groaned, ‘What do we do now?’
There was only one course. Or so Deyv and Vana thought. Sloosh was of another mind.
‘I was willing to pursue the Yawtl as long as he continued in the same direction I was going. I would even have gone out of my way, if it wasn’t too far, to help you. I find you very interesting, if a trifle pathetic. Also, there was the somewhat fascinating mystery of why he would want the eggs. These are useful only to their owners. Or so I’d assumed until now.
‘But to try to get the eggs from this tribe, when the odds are so high against us, is to be irrational. Not to mention stupid. The two are not necessarily the same, you know.
‘I don’t place a high value on my life. Even so, if I lose it, I’d like it to be for something of high value. So, I’ll just continue on my way. I wish you good fortune, though I doubt very much you’ll have
it.’
The Archkerri stopped talking until the slight tremors of the latest quake ceased.
‘But your crystal?’ Deyv said.
‘I’ll be handicapped without it. However, I have enough confidence in my own intelligence to believe that I can make my way back to my land. I’ll get another one there. And then I’ll resume my interrupted quest.
‘By the way, have you ever contemplated life without your soul eggs? Are they really vital?’
‘You’re crazy,’ Vana said.
There was a silence for a while. Finally, Sloosh opened his eyes. He said, ‘I’ve traced my line of thought. It’s rational and analytic. No. I’m not crazy.’
‘What did you mean by “quest”?’ Deyv asked.
‘Two, actually. My first concern was to locate a certain artifact reported to be in the area of Vana’s tribe during my grandfather’s youth. Since I’m a specialist in that kind of artifact, I went to that area. But shortly after I got there, a particularly big quake buried it. I couldn’t get the locals interested in assisting me to dig it up. So, I stayed a little while to study the natives.’
A little while, Deyv thought. Long enough for Vana to grow up.
‘Then I set out for the second and more important phase of my quest, during which the thief stole my crystal.’
He pointed upward. Deyv looked but could see nothing except the blackness of The Beast and a few birds.
‘Those mysterious figures which float over the sky from that direction,’ Sloosh said. ‘For countless generations my people have tried to interpret them.’
‘Why do you care about them?’ It was difficult expressing anger with a whistle, but Vana managed. ‘You know your people’ll be dead within one hundred generations. So why bother?’
‘Knowledge is a joy and a beauty. I would seek it if I knew I would perish a second after I’d gained it. Or a second before, too. The quest of knowledge is as thrilling as the thing itself.’
‘Go on your own way!’ Deyv said. ‘We don’t need you! In fact, you’d be a great hindrance!’
‘Why is that?’ the Archkerri asked calmly.
‘You’re too slow. If we have to run, and we will, you couldn’t keep up with us!’
‘Undeniably so.’
‘You’re a pain in my arse,’ Vana whistled.
‘Very poetic,’ Sloosh said. ‘I must use that some time.’
Deyv threw his hands up. What could you do with such a creature?
The Archkerri ambled away without another word. Deyv turned to the woman. ‘It’s up to us. Perhaps we can think of something to do on our way back to the village.’
Between them, they worked out a plan. It was not one to lift up their spirits. So much depended on exact timing and on the circumstances being such that they could carry it out.
They proceeded cautiously down the path leading to the village. Long before they reached it, they could hear, faintly, the beating of drums and the shrilling of flutes. Some time later, they could also hear the high-pitched chanting of the tribe.
Just before the clearing outside the stockade, they stopped. Vana and Deyv went up a tree to scout out the land. But a horde of stink-roaches poured out of a hole and attacked them. The two slid and jumped back down as swiftly as they could. They landed on the ground bruised, bark-torn and covered with a vile spray. It stank so badly they could scarcely endure themselves. The dog and the cat sped away and cowered behind some bushes. The humans could do nothing but go to the nearest stream and hope they could wash off the nauseating stink.
Deyv had managed to glimpse inside the stockade just before the attack. When they had slid into a muddy stream, he said, ‘Those people have tied the Yawtl to the man he killed and hoisted both from the arm of a pole. I didn’t see the bag with the eggs.’
‘Then it could be anywhere.’
‘It might be in the shaman’s hut. That’s the biggest one, and it’s in the centre of the village.’
‘Perhaps we could get over the wall and sneak around to it while the black people are busy with the Yawtl.’
‘That’s no good,’ Deyv said. ‘The villagers have dogs. They’d smell us if we were anywhere near. In fact, I’m surprised they didn’t smell us when we were on the tree.’
‘The tree is so close to the village they must be used to the stink.’
They left the creek. About the only effect the bathing had was to clear the immediate area of fish, amphibians and snakes. No, there was another. The flies were no longer crawling over them.
‘If they would go to sleep, we could do something,’ Vana said. ‘But we’d have to do it quickly. The dogs might be used to roach odour coming from the tree, but they’d notice at once if we got within the stockade.’
Deyv said, ‘You know, we really don’t have to do anything now. All we have to do is wait. After they’ve tortured and killed the Yawtl, they’ll go back to normal living. We can hang around and watch them. When our chance comes, we’ll strike.’
‘That might not be so easy. The longer we’re here, the more chance we give them to discover us. I think we ought to hit now. They’ll be very excited and preoccupied with the Yawtl, so they won’t be as alert as usual.’
Deyv thought about this. Then Vana said, ‘Besides, I’m afraid that I might lose my courage. I’m keyed up now. But hiding in the jungle and watching them could cool me off. I’d see so many reasons not to take a chance that I’d become too cautious.’
‘You could be right. Anyway, if we don’t succeed this time, and we escape, we can always come back later.’
‘I don’t know how long I can endure it without my soul egg. I don’t know about you, but the emptiness and the meaninglessness increase all the time. There are times when I think I’ll just sit down and die. Get the horror over with.’
For the first time, Deyv looked at Vana with genuine sympathy. It was so powerful that it came close to empathy.
He rose and said, ‘In any event, we have to watch them. So let’s go.’ He took her hand and pulled her up. At the same time, despite his surge of feeling for her a moment ago, he thought, she’s an eater of human corpses.
He could never marry her or even lie with her. But that did not mean that he couldn’t like her – to some extent, anyway. If she were a male cannibal, she could be his friend. So why should her being a woman make a difference?
For some undefinable reason, it did.
Some time later they were on a branch high up in a tree. This was roachless, though it did have some tiny pesky ants. They could see everything within the stockade. It looked as if almost the entire population was getting drunk. The exceptions were the dogs, chickens, pigs, the four guards and the Yawtl. Even the children, babies at the breast, were being plied with alcohol. In addition, a bonfire in front of the shaman’s house was covered from time to time with some kind of plant. This burned, emitting a greenish smoke through which the people walked slowly from time to time. Evidently, they were breathing it in. And they found it even more exhilarating than the liquor.
Neither Deyv nor Vana knew what the plant was. It certainly wasn’t anything like the drugs their tribes used.
At each corner of the square stockade wall was a roofed platform holding a guard. Ladders led from each guard post to the grounds inside the stockade. The guards were, apart from the prisoner, the only unhappy ones in the village. They were not at all pleased that they could not join in the celebration. Deyv wished that they could. It would make it easier for him and Vana to get over the walls.
In the middle of the open square was a tall vertical post across the top of which was a shorter post. From one arm of the T, two ropes had been attached. The other ends of the ropes held the dead man by his waist and the Yawtl by his. The latter was face to face with the corpse, his wrists bound to its. His toes were just touching the ground.
So far, only the children were allowed to touch the Yawtl. Encouraged by their laughing elders, they beat on his legs and buttocks with light sticks or threw mud and p
ig dung at him. Once, a toddler drenched him with the liquor, but he was reprimanded for wasting it.
As time went by, the drummers and flautists fell into rhythms of their own, each wrapped up in his small tight world, ignoring or unaware that he was out of beat with the others. The shaman’s dance became a series of staggers and the thunderstick he had been whirling above his head sometimes struck the ground. A woman fell into the fire and had to be dragged out. She was lucky that anyone noticed her.
‘I’m glad that smoke isn’t blowing our way,’ Deyv said. ’If it were, we’d probably fall out of the tree.’
They munched fruit and brushed off the ants. Jum and Aejip waited patiently at the foot of the tree. One by one, sometimes by twos, the tribespeople dropped off. The children were first. Then the men and women. The shaman kept up the travesty of a dance, stumbling over bodies, laughing, striking the fallen with the thunderstick. Perhaps it was the exercise that kept him going after everybody else had dropped out. But the time came when he could go on no longer. He toppled while breathing in the greenish smoke.
Deyv, coming down the tree, saw this just before the top of the stockade cut off his line of sight.
When they got to the edge of the open area, Deyv ordered Jum and Aejip to wait. He planned to return to this spot, where the animals could ambush any pursuers.
The guard nearest them had been looking outward. It seemed a futile duty. If he did see attackers and gave a warning, he’d be able to alert only the other sentinels. Ten warriors could have taken the village easily and butchered the sleepers at leisure. Deyv left Vana and circled the open area, keeping behind the foliage until he was opposite her. Then, summoning up his courage, he stepped out. Vana came out of the bush a second later.