Fish Tails

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Abasio took a moment before answering. “If they eat ­people, there have to be ­people in the area. If all the prey is gone, we can expect the Edgers to move. If they’re developing something for use after the waters have risen, they need to have access to deep water.”

  Mother agreed. “We will use our best bowmen, but for the time being we’ll avoid guns. We can kill and bury the hunters quietly. Without them, we assume, the other creatures cannot live. Abasio, Precious Wind, we have to find out what it is the Edgers are doing. We have to figure out how to do that without their knowing it, at least for a time.”

  Silence fell again to be broken by Needly’s small, piercing voice, ringing with the clarity of a bell. “Mother, I know this discussion has been very important, and urgent though it is, Xulai and Abasio and I must interrupt our part in it to fulfill a more personal responsibility.

  “Who is going to tell us how to get Willum to the House of the ­Oracles?”

  Xulai turned toward Needly in sudden horror. She had forgotten. For a time she had completely forgotten Willum.

  Chapter 12

  House of the Oracles

  ABASIO WAS, AS USUAL IN THESE DREAMS, IN the middle of the pool . . . or, more accurately, above the middle of the pool. He was invisible to the two women and seemingly to the creatures coming and going on their constant errands. The tower structure with its shimmering pool and lofty lines had been designed to convey a feeling of tranquillity and peace. He could feel it, feel that others felt it, including the statue of a woman that lay on a block of stone not far away, lips tightly compressed, her eyes half shut, almost slitted, as in anger, arms open as though reaching for something.

  It began as it always began: The little girl, who looked to be about six years old, said, “You promised a story!”

  Her mother said, “I know, Crumpet, but . . .”

  “You always tell us no buts.” This, firmly, from the boy. “An’ you did promise.” He was slightly older than his sister. A year or two, perhaps.

  “Oh, tell Crumpet and Crash a story, Jinian,” said Silkhands. “I enjoy them, too.”

  “Once upon a time,” Jinian began, her voice fading into a long mumble.

  “ . . . When mankind came, there were already creatures here who had their own ways of life, their own language, their own ideas of what was right and wrong. They were called Eesties . . . other races of ­people, too . . . the world kept everything peaceful and fruitful by sending messages to every thinking creature in the world . . . they took crystals from the pool to pass on to other living things . . . actually chemical messages that went right to the brain . . . man paid no attention to the messages or the way things were . . . man destroyed it.

  “So, the children of Lom hated us . . . we began to multiply . . . the more of us there were, the more destruction we did. . .”

  Abasio’s dream went on. Either the tower dream or the Plethrob dream. Always the same dream, as though something, someone, wanted him to remember every word of it. A little different, each time, but always the same story of repentance and loss.

  Jinian continued: “And the only reason I can think of for me to go is that my talent may be restored like Grandma Mavin’s is going to be, though probably only temporarily, so I can help the ­people there. Of course, Aunty Silk’s talent was never taken away completely. Healers went right on healing ­people, though it was much harder . . .”

  “I guess that’s a really good thing,” said Crash. “Mama, who’s that coming in here?”

  “It’s the galactic officer,” said Jinian, almost in a whisper. “Fixit. That’s its nickname. Fixit.”

  “Good morning, ladies,” said the person arriving.

  Abasio recognized it. He had bumped into it outside Plethrob’s throne room. It had six legs. He remembered that.

  It came over to the pool, leaned over the edge, and took Abasio’s hand. “Abasio. Remember me?”

  In the dream, Abasio thought he nodded. Thought he remembered saying, “Mmph.”

  “I’ll be seeing you soon,” said the bumped creature. “Don’t worry so much. Xulai worries about your worrying. It’s going to be all right. Promise. Really.”

  “Aunty Silk, c’n I ast a question?” cried Crash.

  “You always do, dear.”

  “Who’s the glactic ossifer talking to? That man hanging out there in the middle of the pool. He keeps looking at me.”

  “What man?” asked the women in unison. “What man?”

  “Me, I’m Abasio,” shouted Abasio in his dream. “Every damned time the Dervish can see me, this Fixit creature I bumped into can see me, the children can see me, why in the hell can’t you?”

  LOOKING OVER HER SHOULDER, NEEDLY came into the wagon to find Xulai and Precious Wind in furious activity, neatening the wagon for its trip to the Oracles the following morning. She watched for a few moments before asking tentatively, “Xulai, did you know Abasio’s sound asleep out there under a tree? He’s making these really strange noises and talking to someone about a Dervish. And yelling that somebody can’t see him.”

  Xulai had been crouched over an open drawer. She rose with a troubled expression. “Yesterday at the meeting, he told everyone about his strange dreams. They have been going on for a long time, before we even reached Saltgosh. They’re haunting him. Wide Mountain Mother seemed to believe in them, at least partly. I wish Abasio could figure out why they come to him. He says it’s like a book; every night it opens up at some other place, only the same ­people are involved all the time. Dreams shouldn’t do that. Should they?”

  “Have you ever asked what he’s dreaming about?”

  “Not really, no. Do you think I should? I thought talking about it might only make it worse.”

  Xulai took a tiny garment from the pile at the back, shook it out, and shrieked—­in surprise, not revulsion. The shirt had been mouse-­occupied. Mouse landed on the bed and leapt to the floor, five baby mice landed on the bed along with everything else that had been in the drawer. Needly was first there, removing her shoe, laying it on its side with the heel against the wall, the opening toward mama mouse. Mouse saw the shoe as a nice, dark cave and ran for it, down to the toe. Needly wrapped a handkerchief around the shoe and rescued the mouse-­lets.

  “You have a mouse in your shoe!” Xulai expostulated.

  “It’s the easiest way to catch them, Xulai. Mice like to run along walls because that’s where they find holes, and most ­people wear shoes, or boots, so they usually have one handy. If you put your shoe down like that—­on its side, heel against the wall, toe out, open top toward the mouse—­it’ll run into your shoe, down into the nice dark toe. Then you just wrap something around the top, to keep it from jumping out while you relocate it.” She grabbed a piece of bread from the food cabinet and limped purposefully toward the trees, shoe in one hand, bread and mouse-­lets in the other.

  When she returned, reshod, she found Xulai, Abasio, and Precious Wind emptying the wagon. Xulai, rather red-­faced, announced, “Having mice in drawers simply verified that the wagon needs a good cleaning! We’re making the trip to the Oracles in the morning, and the wagon should be mouse-­free before we go! What did you do with them?”

  “I found a nice hollow log back there. I put the mouse family in it, along with enough food for today. It’s near water and there’s lots of dried grasses with large seeds. Mama mouse will be fine. How can I help?”

  “Fold down the outside table, be sure it’s clean, empty one drawer at a time onto the table, wipe out the drawer, and shake things out. Fold and put them back if they’re clean. If anything is dirty or mousy or chewed, leave it outside and I’ll look at it there.”

  Precious Wind went to fetch wash water, and Xulai stopped in midfold, staring at the wall. “Needly. Abasio’s funny about telling me things that he thinks might be upsetting. Upsetting to me, I mean. What he thinks might u
pset me, he wouldn’t necessarily think would upset you. Could you . . . sort of ask him about the dreams? Yesterday he said he’d had the dream again and he wondered what normal felt like. He said he wondered if fated persons are allowed to have a normal day. If he’s really having some kind of . . .”

  “Puzzlement,” suggested Needly.

  “Anxiety. Something like that. It might help him to talk to someone about it, and he won’t, not ordinarily. Except to Blue. Who has limited understanding of the human . . .”

  “Mind? Psyche? Personality?”

  “Any of those. You could always involve Precious Wind or even Arakny. They’re both very levelheaded. So am I, of course, normally, but with the babies I get—­”

  “—­into a state of maternal confusion, which is normal to new mothers.” Needly spoke in a fully mature voice.

  “That was Grandma, wasn’t it?” Xulai commented.

  “I guess,” said Needly, in some confusion. Maybe Abasio wasn’t the only one being haunted. She knew Xulai was worried about Abasio, and recently Needly herself had worried about him. Every time he saw someone sit in the chair his grandfather had made—­made specially to fit into this wagon, long before Abasio had even met Xulai—­Abasio fussed about not making time to go visit his grandfather, who lived somewhere north of here. And yesterday he’d stomped about saying there were other teams out now; the whole future did not rest upon Xulai and him alone. He wanted Xulai and his grandfather to know each other before it was too late. He wanted his grandfather to see the children.

  Poor Abasio. Needly knew he wanted . . . a lot of things, and he wasn’t the only one who needed to do something else. Xulai wanted to do something else. From what both of them said, everything they’d done since birth had been fated. They wanted some un-­fated time off!

  When they went outside later, however, he seemed to have cheered up. “In the morning, we’ll have a quick, early breakfast and make the trip to the Oracles without stopping for a meal. Since this will take us close to the country where the stinkers are or were, Wide Mountain Mother is sending a sizable number of the warriors—­all of them bowmen—­as guides and escort, and some of the women are going. She tells me they’re provisioning a small wagon that will also carry Willum.”

  Xulai put the baby clothes into the washtub and Precious Wind lifted the kettle from the fire and poured the hot water over them. “How long will it take?”

  Abasio shrugged. “The trip will take less than a full day, assuming no disasters. And if we get a chance, she wants us to explore the place Coyote saw. Where the stinkers got hosed off.”

  “Explore it?” Xulai stiffened. Exploring wasn’t something she wanted to do with the children along.

  Precious Wind shook her head. “Not all of us, Xulai. If it looks abandoned, a ­couple of the warriors and I will look it over. It didn’t sound like a place where ­people stay permanently. I do have equipment to detect high-­tech alarms and traps.”

  Abasio didn’t argue with her. There was never any point in arguing with Tingawans. One would think one had won the argument, only to find one had reached the end of round one in a bout that could go on after one or both parties had died and passed it to succeeding gen­erations.

  Xulai took the lid off a small kettle at the side of the fire where a savory mixture of chicken, onions, green peppers, and cornmeal was warming for their lunch. “This is ready to eat. Come get your bowls, stir in some of this shredded cheese, and we’ll have our lunch before we finish sweeping out.”

  She leaned over, dipping the big spoon into a pot that suddenly began to squirm toward her across the coals. Xulai screamed and took two tottering steps back. There was a great subterranean muttering sound, like talking mountains. Horses screamed. In the plaza men yelled, and there came a loud, crashing sound. The ground went on shaking and snarling as Xulai staggered and fell, desperately twisting to avoid the fire. Abasio tried to run toward her and was sent sprawling. Needly had been shaken off the wagon step and was ruefully fingering a skinned elbow while the world went on with its deep, terrible growling and trembling, as though trying to shake itself apart.

  The noise faded slowly, though the horses went on screaming and whinnying. A great cloud of dust had formed at the far side of the plaza, from which shouts and calls were still rising, along with coughs and curses. Adobe chimneys had fallen . . . were still falling! One tottered as they watched, adding to the dust cloud. Someone shrieked for help, and they heard running feet.

  “What in . . .” cried Abasio, crawling over to help Xulai, who was sitting quite still while her eyes searched for the cook pot. Miraculously, it had not overturned. “Babies!” she cried.

  Needly crawled up the wagon steps and looked inside. “They’re fine, Xulai. They didn’t even wake up!” Needly had reached the conclusion the babies were calamitously picky but catastrophe-­proof. They would take an earthquake without a quiver but could create a full-­blown crisis over a morsel of potato. Baby lunch could take . . . hours! Now, if she could just find something really catastrophic to feed them, maybe a live rattlesnake, they’d probably swallow it and go to sleep!

  Abasio helped Xulai up, unhurt except for a ­couple of sore places that would probably turn into bruises. Together they washed the abrasion on Needly’s arm and put a bandage over it. Abasio went to the horses and found Blue volubly and inaccurately explaining earthquakes to Rags.

  As he returned from the horses, Needly remarked, “I guess that was an earthquake?”

  “Yes,” Abasio agreed. “It must have happened at some distance from us. I’m trying to remember what I’ve heard about aftershocks. Aren’t they supposed to come very soon after?”

  Precious Wind muttered, “Very soon after, but not always. Abasio, look across the plaza to the southwest.”

  They all looked. One of the roads—­that is, rutted pathways—­that led away from the plaza pointed down the slope across the little stream, beside the dancing ground, past the men’s houses, into the desert and away: an endless line of ruts disappearing into an expanse of nothing. Where that trail met the horizon a cloud was rising, boiling, thrusting up great billows of dust, their rounded tops caught by a wind that pushed them northwest, expanding as they went.

  “Something over there either fell in or heaved up,” said Abasio. The noises from the area around them had subsided. There were occasional yells, but no screaming. Abasio got up and walked toward the noise on the plaza. He returned only a few moments later to tell them a few chimneys had fallen, one old, empty house had fallen—­they’d been going to tear it down soon, anyhow. ­People had been moved away from toppled walls for safety while they were considering what to do. No one had been killed. The worst injury was one broken arm from a fall from a ladder. The healers were dealing with the broken arm along with various abrasions and bruises. Abasio took a bit more food in his bowl, which he had managed to put down without spilling. The Griffins were fine, a little startled but fine. Sun-­wings remembered other such shocks and had limped outside to see the dust cloud.

  Everyone seemed to be waiting after that, for another quake, for an aftershock, for some word of catastrophe, and the only sounds were of chewing, swallowing, comments on the dust cloud off to the southwest—­which continued to roil—­and murmured appreciation to Xulai as the cook. Cookery was a safe subject for each of them, though for different reasons. Needly, who was trying to think of anything except shaking land, resolved to ask Xulai to teach her to cook. Precious Wind, who was tired of worrying over the stinker problem, was wondering when Xulai could possibly have learned to cook. Not at Woldsgard, certainly. The cook there would not have taken kindly to an invasion of her kitchen. Abasio was merely feeling grateful that Xulai could cook, though he didn’t intend to mention it because it would set Xulai off on a rant as to whether cooking skills had been part of the breeding program.

  As Needly scraped the bottom of her bowl, she remark
ed, “I should go see Dawn-­song. She might be frightened . . .”

  Abasio rose. “Sun-­wings is eight hundred years old, Needly. I imagine she’s soothed her child through more dangerous events. Besides, to avoid any possible misunderstandings, Wide Mountain Mother fixed up a guard post over there. There’s someone reliable on duty all the time who can keep her informed about what’s going on.”

  “Why?” asked Needly. “Surely she didn’t think the Griffins would . . .”

  Xulai shook her head. “Mother’s not worried about Sun-­wings or Dawn-­song doing anything. But, according to Arakny, there’s a very small group—­half a dozen or so—­of old lie-­abouts who are griping about providing food for the Griffins. Arakny says this particular bunch haven’t even provided food for themselves since reaching adolescence and taking up their lifetime careers in the fields of gripe, cavil, and complaint. All one family, brothers and cousins, and it’s an inherited trait.”

  “They need a cata-­pull-­it,” said Needly and Abasio, in unison. They shared a grin while Abasio explained the guard duty. “Mother put the guard over there because she thought it best the gripe group be prevented from haranguing Sun-­wings and Dawn-­song. When she told me about them, I told her about the cata-­pull-­it. She’s going to tell the clan mothers about it, focusing on getting rid of certain ­people. They know of a swamp down along the river where they can build one. She thinks the family you’re talking about may move away when they see the construction and hear about how it’s used, particularly the part about being paraded about while the drum goes ‘dum, dum, dum,’ while the ­people take a vote as to whether they get cata-­pull-­ited or not. The useless old complainers would certainly fear the vote going against them.”