The Deep Beyond: Cuckoo's Egg / Serpent's Reach

by C. J. Cherryh

  That evening Thorn was silent, gloomy, thoughtful. He did not ask about Ellud. Did not discuss the meds.

  Thorn slept apart now. There were changes in his body which made this advisable. He went to his room of the many rooms in the house and curled up into his privacy. Duun came to check on him.

  “Are my ears going to grow?” Thorn asked, looking at him from the pillow as he stood in the doorway.

  Ears. Maybe that was the easiest, least painful thing to ask. Duun stood silent. He had planned how he would answer about claws and hair and the shape of their faces and the difference of their loins. He had planned everything but ears.

  “I don’t think so,” Duun said. “I don’t care, do you?”

  Silence, from the small shadow in the bedbowl.

  “You’re unusual,” Duun said.

  A snuffle.

  “I like you that way,” Duun said.

  “I like you,” came the small, disembodied voice. Another snuffle. “I like you, Duun.” Love was, Duun recalled, not a word he had ever used in Thorn’s hearing. Like you. As one liked a warm fire. The sun on one’s back.

  “I like you too, Thorn.”

  “I don’t want any more meds.”

  “I’ll talk to them about that. Do you want to go hunting tomorrow? I’ll give you a knife of your own. I’ll show you how to keep the blade.”

  “Hunting what?” Snuffle. Shadow-child wiped his eyes with a swipe of an arm; nose with another. There was interest in the voice.

  “I’m hatani, Thorn. That’s something hard to be. That’s why I push you hard.”

  “What’s hatani?”

  “I’ll show you. Tomorrow. I’ll teach you. You’ll learn to do what I can do. It’s going to be hard, Thorn.”

  Another wipe of the eyes.

  “Tomorrow, Thorn?”

  “Yes.”

  “Get to sleep, then.”

  Duun went back to the fire. Wind howled outside, in cold. The fire leapt. The last of the old countryfolk lumber was gone. They began to use an old log from downslope. He cut it with the power saw he had ordered with supplies and brought it up, bit by bit. None of the countryfolk from the valley would bother the pile he had made on the roadside below. They kept out of his sight and left no sign near the house. But he knew that they were there.

  They would know hatani patience. Countryfolk had patience of their own. Perhaps things would change. Perhaps the hatani would die. Perhaps the alien would meet with accident. Perhaps their title would become valid again.

  Perhaps they had bad dreams, down in the valley, on the other side of the mountain, out of his sight and mind. Perhaps they dreamed nightmares, imagining that their woods were no longer their own.

  Or that the woods might not be theirs again, forever.

  He had asked for the house and lands of Sheon. He had not used the lands, till now.

  He took his weapons from the top shelf of the locked cabinet where they had remained out of the way of curious young fingers. He had taken them out many times to care for them, and never let Thorn touch them, to Thorn’s great frustration. A child should have unfulfilled ambitions; should know some things forbidden. Doubtless Thorn had tried. Children were not always virtuous. That was to be expected. And dealt with.

  • • •

  “Have you ever tried these?” Duun asked, when Thorn sat opposite him, across the blanket from the small array of knives, cord, wire, the two guns, one projectile-firing and one not. “Have you ever handled them?”

  “No,” Thorn said.

  “Will you ever, if I tell you no?”

  Alien eyes lifted to him, in startlement that at once dilated and contracted the irises: swift, furtive decision to agree, the easy course, swiftly to be violated— perhaps. If a child wished. There would be a quick flick of a reproving finger against an ear. Perhaps a cuff to make the eyes water. Thorn could endure that. There was no permanency. Nothing was forever. As he lacked a past, he lacked a true future, and believed nothing could thwart him forever.

  There was no can’t for Thorn. Duun had taught him so.

  “I am not asking you,” Duun said, holding up the solitary finger of his right hand. “I am telling you a thing. I want you to believe this. Will you ever pick these up if I tell you no?”

  From childish excitement, from game to perplexity. Thorn’s brow contracted in a spasm of anxiety. Perhaps Duun would break his promise? Perhaps he was being teased?

  Duun took off the cloak and dropped it behind him. He picked up the wer, a middling blade. He stretched out his bare left arm, fist clenched, and set the knife against his forearm.

  “No!” Thorn cried suddenly. A game? A threat? Something he had done wrong? Duun was teasing him?

  Duun slowly brought the blade down and down, deeply. Blood sprang out and rained in steady, heavy drops on the weapons and the blanket. He kept his fist clenched and held the arm steady, resting the knife butt on his knee. Thorn’s eyes were wide, his mouth open with nothing coming out.

  “That’s what weapons are for,” Duun said. The blood poured, soaked the blanket. “Each time you take them up, remember what they’re for.”

  “Stop it,” Thorn cried. “Duun, stop it bleeding!”

  Duun held out the knife, the wounded arm still spurting. He turned it in his maimed hand and offered it hilt first to Thorn. “Can you do it?”

  Thorn took the bloodied knife. His eyes still were wide. His lips set themselves, drawn in. He held out his own clenched fist and set the knife to his skin. He drew the blade down the same way, and his face was red and his eyes poured tears; his nostrils and his lips went pale. He drew the knife down. Blood began to drip. The small hand drew away, the knife wobbling in tremors that convulsed the knife-arm and began to involve the other. As Duun had done, he set the knife hand on his knee, and his face was all white and beaded with moisture, while the blood ran down and made another darkening of the blanket.

  So. So. Duun had expected last-moment flinching. His own head grew light. His cut was deeper and bled abundantly. He held out his hand and took the knife back. He saw the terror in the child. (What more. Duun? What else? What worse? I’m scared, Duun!)

  “It is not a game,” Duun said. He put down the knife and pressed his right hand to his wound. “You can hold it. Hold it tight.” He got up from his cross-legged posture without using either hand. He went and opened the med kit and pressed a sealing film on the wound. He came back to Thorn with another square of the gel, and pressed the film to Thorn’s arm and held it, warming it with his hand until it took and stayed, soft and blood-reddened, over a wound that would scar. Duun held the arm. Alien eyes looked up at him, white all round. He was tender in his grip. “You won’t forget,” Duun said. “You won’t forget what weapons are. You will never pick them up when I tell you not.”

  “No.” A small weak voice.

  “You will use them when I say. And you’ll set them down when I say.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” He slid a bloodstained hand past Thorn’s head and rubbed Thorn’s nape in the vise of his maimed hand till the tension left and Thorn’s body gave to and fro with that motion, his eyes still fixed on Duun. “Believe me, Thorn. Believe me in this. You hurt now. But you did what I asked. That was brave.”

  Muscles in Thorn’s face shook, as in some dire chill. His limbs convulsed. Stopped. Duun kept on his massage until the shiver passed. Thorn’s eyes lost their wild look. They were wide and moiled with forethought and calculations. (What else does he want? What did I win? What did I do? What next?)

  Duun let go. Motioned at the bloodstained weapons. “Clean them. I’ll show you how.”

  Thorn stirred, edged closer to the array of weapons on the blanket. “You said—” he began.

  “I said?”

  “We’d go hunting. You said— we’d go hunting today.”<
br />
  “That we will. We won’t eat tonight if we don’t take something.”

  Thorn’s eyes flicked up a second time; Thorn could do that, without turning his head. The look hoped for a joke and Duun made his face implacable.

  There was no question, of course. The place was full of unwary game. No one hunted it much. Yet. And a hatani could, in the most desolate place, find some sustenance.

  But Thorn would discover this when he was hungry. When he had tried for himself and understood that he was too loud and too awkward.

  When he had seen what was in the land, and what the wild things knew.

  “I promised you a knife.”

  A glance upward, wary interest. A stare of white wide eyes.

  “The wer-knife. The one you used. That would be a good one for you. You can have it if you like. It’s a very good blade. You have to keep it spotless. Even fingers stain it. I’ll show you how to keep it.”

  Thorn picked it up again, by the hilt. Held it.

  • • •

  The gangling boy came up the trail, thinking he was alert: Duun knew. Thorn looked this way and that: his callused feet made very little noise on the dusty track among the rocks.

  “Up,” Duun hissed. “Look up.”

  Thorn’s head came up. Duun had already moved, lost in the brush.

  The boy was still looking up when Duun hit him in the back with a thrown stone. Thorn spun about and threw. Thorn’s stone rattled away down among brush and rock. Duun had evaded it with a fluid shift of his hip, and stood untouched.

  “Too late,” Duun said. “You’re dead. I’m not.”

  Thorn’s shoulders slumped. He bent his head in shame.

  Whirled and sped another rock underhand.

  Duun evaded that one too without more than shifting stance. Thorn did not look surprised, only exhausted. Beaten at last.

  Duun grinned. “Better. That did surprise me.” The grin faded. “But your choosing this track up didn’t. That was your first mistake. How did I know? Can you figure that?”

  Thorn gasped for breath. Hunkered down on the path, arms on scabbed knees. “Because I was tired. The climb’s easier.”

  “Better still. You’re right. Think ahead next time. And think in all directions. You know this path. You should have seen these rocks in your head before you came to them.”

  No answer. Thorn knew. Duun knew that he knew. Thorn wiped his forearm across his face and smeared dust across the sweat. Even at this range he stank of heat.

  “Also,” Duun reminded him with delicacy, “when you came round the mountain the wind was coming at your shoulder, at an angle to the rocks. Do you see why that should have warned you?”

  Thorn blinked sweat and wiped again. He had grown rangier, longer of limb. The belly had gone hollow beneath the ribs, ridged with muscle above the wrap about his loins. Brushscars showed white on his skin. “Scent,” he said. He gasped for breath. There was chagrin in his half-drowned face. “Sorry. I’m sorry, Duun.”

  “Sorry won’t save you. Scent-deaf doesn’t mean the world is. You’re dead, Thorn.”

  “Yes, Duun.” A faint, hoarse voice. Shoulders slumped again. “You won’t catch me again.”

  “Won’t I?”

  “Duun— I’m hungry, Duun!”

  Duun spun around the other side of the tree, leaned there looking at him and scowling. “Hunt, then. Fool. Don’t tell me what your needs are. I’ll know where to find you. Don’t trust me, Thorn.”

  “I’m not playing, Duun!”

  “Then neither will I be.” Duun spun round again. Headed downslope. “I’ll hurt you this time, Thorn!”

  “Duun!”

  • • •

  Fire crackled, there in the clearing. They made peace. Thorn nursed bruises. It was Duun’s catch Duun divided with him, meat which Thorn took gingerly, dancing it from one hand to the next while it cooled down.

  “You do well,” Duun said.

  “For someone who can’t smell,” Thorn said hoarsely. “Who falls into traps.”

  Duun flicked his ears. “Good, you worry about your lacks. You’ll think of them. You won’t forget again.”

  “Duun, what’s wrong with me?”

  The question stopped him. The meat burned Duun’s fingers and he shifted it in haste, back and forth again, and laid it on a rock. “Wrong. Who said wrong?”

  Silence from the other side of the fire. Grievous silence.

  “You’re different,” Duun said. “Or maybe I am. Does that occur to you?”

  It had not. Thorn blinked in shock. Then disbelief crept in. There were the meds. There was Ellud. Thorn was not diverted. Duun was pleased with that, too.

  “You’re smart,” Duun said. “You’re quick, you’re clever. Brave. All those things. You’re Thorn. What if you were the only one? What if? What if I were the only Duun? Would that make a difference? You’re all you can be. You don’t need anything else. I don’t.”

  “Make sense, Duun!”

  “The world’s wide, boy. Wide. There’s nine seas. There’s cities. There’s roads and highways. People in a hurry. Cities are full of noise. Sheon’s best. That’s this place, Sheon. The gods made this whole world and they made Sheon first. You talk to the winds, Thorn. You hear the gods talk back? Do you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can’t hear that in a city. Cityfolk are scent-deaf. Too many smells. Gives you a headache.” Duun tore off a bit of meat and swallowed. “The gods made the world and they made shonunin last, out of the leftovers; and they were missing some. And they were sorry, so one of them gave up a bit and another gave another bit and they filled up the gaps till there were parts enough. That’s what we are, all scraps and a bit of the gods’ own selves. All patchwork. With good parts and bad. So you can’t smell. I’ve got just six fingers. And you’ve got five on just one hand.”

  “How did you—?”

  Ah. The fish bit. Duun had thought that bait would lead him astray. Duun shrugged. “I made a mistake. See? Even I make mistakes. And I’m good, Thorn, I’m very good. You don’t know how good.”

  Thorn choked down a bite. He had to chew more than Duun did. Sometimes in his haste he forgot this. He struggled. Stayed silent after. “What happened?” Thorn asked finally. “Duun— what did happen to your—?”

  “Ah. Well. I hunted something that bit back, you see?” He held up the maimed hand. “You put your hand into things, young Thorn, you may not get back what you want.”

  “What was it?”

  Duun took another bite. Swallowed. “Eat. It’s getting cold.”

  “Duun.”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you. When you can beat me, fair or foul.”

  “I never will!”

  “Ah. Maybe you won’t. But you’re several fingers ahead of me. You’re younger than I am. My knee aches when it rains.”

  “Couldn’t the meds—?”

  “Maybe I didn’t want them to.”

  Thorn’s mouth was open. He closed it and stopped asking. His eyes were muddled with unasked questions and too many answers. He had become too wary a hunter to go down a trail that likely to have snares. Thorn took another bite and ate in silence.

  “I’ll teach you to shoot,” Duun said. “You almost hit me with that stone.”

  Thorn looked up. Distracted again, lured on and promised. (O young fool. Fool who loves me. Thorn.)

  • • •

  “Another sequence,” Duun said. “Base ten this time. The numbers are sixteen, forty-nine, fifty-two, ninety-seven, eight and two.”

  Thorn sat on the back porch of the house. The hiyi flowers bloomed. The insects hummed and made pink petals fall in delirium. Thorn shut his eyes. His brow knit. “Two hundred twenty four.”

  “Divide by the third in sequence.”

  Thorn put his ha
nds against his eyes. Pressed hard. “Four point three.” He looked up. “Can’t we go hunting. Duun? I’m tired of—”

  “More decimals.”

  Another shutting of the eyes. Hands pressed to shut out the light. “Point three zero eight.”

  “Add nine. Subtract four, eighty-two. Six.”

  The hands came down. Eyes blinked. “I’m sorry, Duun, I lost it, I forgot—”

  “No. You didn’t remember. Think. Name me the numbers.”

  “I—”

  “Am I about to hear can’t?”

  “Didn’t”

  “Didn’t. Didn’t. There was a nest of maganin; here and here and here! How many were they? Which groups? Where? They’ve eaten you, fool!”

  “Maganin don’t come in fifties!”

  “I am ashamed.” Duun thrust his hands into the waist of his kilt and walked away.

  “Duun—”

  Duun turned, ears pricked. “You’ve remembered.”

  “No! No, I haven’t remembered! I can’t remember! I don’t remember!”

  “Then I’m still ashamed.” Duun laid his ears back, turned and walked on.

  “Duun—”

  Duun did not look back. There were tears back there. Rage. It was Thorn’s nature.

  So was it Thorn’s nature to come trailing back into the house, finally, when it was dark, when Duun had made a fire and sat on the sand before the hearth. Duun had cooked food. He had eaten. He had brought Thorn’s supper outside and set it wordlessly on the step. Thorn was not to be seen. But it was in Thorn’s nature to admit defeat when night came.

  Thorn came and stood on the sand beside him. “Two hundred twenty-four,” Thorn said.

  Duun’s ears pricked. “Plus nine. Minus four. Eighty-two. Six.”

  “One forty-one.”

  “Ah. You can.”

  Thorn knelt. Leaned on his hands. “What in the world comes in two hundred twenty-fours?”

  “Stars. Trees. Kinds of grass. The ways of a river. The stubbornness of a child. The world is wide, young Thorn. I can reckon the speed of the wind, name the stars, the cities of the world. I can read a man’s intent in the pupils of his eyes.”

  Duun swung around and struck, open palmed. Thorn’s open palm was there to meet it, stopped it, held and trembled.