The Beyond

by Jeffrey Ford

  He followed the old man into the hut, which was much larger and longer than the others. It was dimly lit by a small fire in the center of the dirt floor. Above the flames there was an opening in the roof of braided branches through which the smoke rose. It was warm inside, and a fragrant aroma of wildflowers mixed in with that of the burning wood.

  Two virile-looking young men and a young woman sat around the fire. The old man took his place in the circle and motioned for Cley to sit next to him. The hunter smiled as he got down on his knees and copied their posture with legs crossed in front. They smiled back, and he noticed it was not genuine but more an attempt to imitate him. He nodded in a feeble show of thanks for their courtesy, and they nodded back. Wood then stepped up to the old man and sat close beside him. The old man put his head forward for the dog to lick his nose. For this, Wood was given a piece of meat from a gourd bowl resting on the fire stones.

  Cley was impressed that the dog had already ingratiated himself to the tattooed people, for the animal repeated this act with each of those present and at each stop was fed a piece of meat. Then Wood approached Cley and waited as if expecting his companion to follow the ritual. The hunter tried to ignore him, but Wood sat and waited. Cley noticed that the others were watching, so he gave in and leaned forward. There was also a bowl of meat set by his place at the fire, and he fed the dog a piece.

  “You sly bastard,” Cley thought.

  Wood glanced at him from the corner of his eye and then walked over near the entrance and lay down.

  The others began eating from the bowls, and Cley did not hesitate to join them. The meal, whatever it was, was delicious. The meat was cooked to tenderness and seasoned with a variety of spices, both sweet and hot.

  “Very good,” said Cley, but the sound of his voice seemed to annoy them, for they winced when he spoke. For the rest of the meal, he remained silent, satisfied enough to be filling his stomach with real food.

  Cley decided that the fellow sitting across from him must be the chief or the mayor of the village. He alone wore an elaborate necklace made of formidable-looking animal teeth and was decorated more profusely than the others. There was also the fact that his muscled, lean physique exuded an aura of strength and confidence.

  When they were finished eating, this young man reached behind himself and brought forth an object of considerable size. Cley was surprised to see that it was the book he had carried with him on the journey. The chief passed it to his right to the young woman, who took it and handed it to the hunter. He looked up and around at the circle of faces. The other man to the immediate left of the chief squinted and fixed Cley with a piercing stare. The old man with the one ear opened his eyes wide. The young woman winked her left eye and the chief winked with his right.

  Cley understood the seriousness of the situation but could hardly prevent himself from laughing. He wondered what he was to make of all this mugging and eye language. The old man leaned over and opened the singed cover of the book. Turning to the first full page of remaining text, he gently brushed his gnarled fingers across the words.

  “Book,” said Cley.

  They stared at him.

  “Words,” he said.

  They sat as if waiting for something to happen.

  In the tense silence, he finally realized what they wanted. He lifted the tome and began quietly to read. As he read about the nature of the soul, they sat perfectly still, and when he looked up at the break between the third and fourth paragraph, he saw that they were not even breathing. He refocused his attention and hurried to the end of the page so as not to suffocate them. When he was finished, he saw their bodies relax and heard, only faintly, the air passing through their nostrils.

  He looked around to see if they wanted him to continue. The old man leaned over again and took the page that Cley had just read between his fingers. The hunter waited for him to turn it and indicate that they wanted him to continue; instead he suddenly ripped it out of the book. Cley was startled, but he did nothing, knowing he owed them much more than the entire book for having saved his life. The page was passed around to the chief, who balled it up, put it in his mouth, and started chewing.

  The old man now indicated that the hunter should read the next page, and he did. Again they held their breath, and when he came to the end, he, himself, ripped the page out and passed it over to the young woman, who he guessed to be the chief’s wife. She crumpled it and put it in her mouth. This process was repeated so that the old man and the other fellow next to the chief each also were given something to chew on.

  To Cley’s bafflement, they chewed the wadded paper for the longest time. He smiled at them every now and then, and they mechanically returned his smile. Finally, the chief swallowed and the others followed his lead. Cley nodded to them all as if to say he hoped they enjoyed it, but then he saw that they were not finished. The chief, his wife, the old man, and the one to the left of the chief moved from their sitting positions in order to get on all fours. They did this slowly, and each movement of their limbs was like some part of a ritual.

  When all of their heads were facing in toward the fire, they suddenly spit in unison. Cley jerked back, partially at the abruptness of the coordinated act, but more because their expectorations had a luminosity about them, like copious gobs of quicksilver. The instant the spittle hit the fire, there was a sizzling noise, and smoke began to rise. It did not trail upward as before like a twisting, turning, blue-gray vine. Now it rose in a wide, undulating sheet. Within this living veil of smoke, an image began to appear.

  Cley leaned back in awe at what he witnessed, but his wonder turned quickly to fear when he recognized that the figure in the smoke was that of the eyeless ghost woman who had visited him on the rock island in the midst of his fever. He saw her open her mouth to cry out as he had in his delusion. There was no sound, but the clarity of her image made him believe there would be. He sat stunned, with his own mouth open. Then, as before, without warning, a perfect miniature of the red bird darted from her mouth toward his ear. Cley screamed, but fast as a snake striking, the old man reached out and caught the terrible creature in his hand. As his fingers closed around it, the bird, the sheet of smoke, the apparition, all disintegrated into nothing.

  The chief stood up, and the others of the tribe followed. The young woman had to help Cley to his feet, for he was still sitting motionless with an expression of terror on his face. He rose slowly and was led out into the sunlight. The chief, the woman, and the other man each touched the hunter lightly on the forehead before they walked away. The old man remained and led him back, with Wood following, to the hut in which he had recovered. Before departing, his guide also touched his forehead. Although he was shaken, Cley nodded in thanks. The old man turned away, and the hunter noticed that the venerable fellow now had both ears intact.

  He came to think of them as the Silent Ones, for they neither spoke nor sighed, laughed nor sang. When the children cried, the tears rolled down their faces, but they voiced not the slightest peep of anguish. At times, he was convinced that they were physically unable to utter a sound, and at others, he wondered if he was witnessing the greatest collective act of stoicism ever encountered. His own voice often seemed to disturb them, but there were times, especially when he read from the book, that he could tell they were listening carefully, almost entranced by the cadence of his words.

  Every day that passed in the village, Cley pledged would be his last. He did not forget his destination, which lay somewhere far ahead, an eternity or so away, but the silence of his rescuers was an enigma that sparked his curiosity. They proved themselves to be such a gentle people, such a calm and content society, that he saw something in them that he knew he would need if he was to be successful in his quest. What that quality was, he felt ever on the verge of discovering when waking each morning in his hut. He followed them in their daily routines, watched them work and hunt and play, but at night, when he rolled back onto the reed mat, he fell off to sleep with the frustrati
ng realization that he was no closer to the answer than when he had first arrived in the village.

  He stayed on for two weeks, casually studying their body art, their subtle communication of furtive glances, their desire to ingest the pages of the book. He hoped that in a wink, a spiral of blue line, he might find the answer to how they knew he was stranded on the rock island in the middle of the flood, or, more importantly, why they had made the effort to save him.

  The gravity of the second question became clear to him on the day he accompanied two young men of the tribe back to the edge of the drowned flatland and saw out, across the now decreasing waters, the Country of Six Boulders, an insignificant dot on the horizon.

  He couldn’t tell if they were pleased to have him as a guest or if he was a burden. As with most things, they seemed neutral on the subject and continued to conduct their lives in the same unassuming manner from day to day.

  The body images had been rendered with such incredible precision that Cley was constantly tricked by the design of a large spider on one young man’s shoulder and tried, on more than one occasion, to brush it off. The fellow appeared unfazed by the hunter’s foolishness.

  In order to avoid unknown social blunders, Cley attempted to decipher the power structure of the Silent Ones. It was plain to see that he was correct in assuming that the young man with the necklace and the Sirimon skull tattooed on his chest was the chief. The others seemed to pay him deference by looking at his feet when first in his presence. There were only two individuals among the tribe who appeared to contradict his command at certain times. One was his wife, or the woman Cley at first guessed to be the queen. On a certain morning when the chief was casting symbolic glances all over the place and motioning with his hands, she asserted herself by thrusting out her own left hand, making a fist, flipping out the thumb, and jabbing it at the ground. Upon seeing this sign, the head of the village immediately ceased dispensing his silent commands, rushed to their hut, and returned with a bright yellow plum for her, which she devoured on the spot.

  When none of the adults were nearby, Cley tried out this same hand motion on one of the many children who followed him through the course of his daily activities. He wondered if the boy would bring him fruit. Instead the child crossed his eyes and made a hand gesture involving the middle finger.

  The only other person who seemed to hold a position of power was the bent old man. Cley learned that he was the body scribe, supplying all the members of the tribe with tattoos. He worked outside his modest hut. The subject either lay down or sat on an animal skin. The hunter watched as the old man mixed together different ingredients—plant sap, berries, and the secretions of a fat toad—to create a blue ink, the color reminiscent of the spire rock once mined in Anamasobia. The artisan’s tools were a series of long thin needles with stone-ground points that had been crafted from the tail spikes of Sirimon skeletons. Cley sat beside him as he rendered a depiction of the flood on the stomach of a middle-aged woman.

  Cley woke one morning to find the chief sitting in his hut, patting Wood’s head, and holding across his lap the long spear that was the Silent Ones’ weapon of choice. The native pointed to the hunter’s clothes and closed his eyes, indicating that Cley should get dressed. As soon as he dressed and put on his hat, the young man somehow knew to open his eyes. Then he pointed to the rifle. Cley picked up the gun, and the chief rose and left the hut.

  With Wood following close behind, they traveled out past the perimeter of the village. The surrounding landscape was not so densely wooded as the demon forest. There was not as great a variety of trees and none so giant as where Cley and Wood had wintered. This was a territory of shorter, gnarled, fruit-bearing trees that grew in clusters of thirty or forty amidst green, rolling hills. It was a serene place with pockets of wildflowers and occasional streams running through the minor valleys. The branches were alive with all variety of birds that joined, each with its specific call, to create a kind of symphony.

  Cley loaded the gun as they walked along, and as he did he noticed the chief watching him. Wood was ecstatic to be out on the hunt again. He had sloughed off the daily garland of flowers the children bedecked him with and was bounding ahead, searching for the scent of prey. As soon as the chief looked away, Cley took the opportunity to become the spy, himself, and studied the young man.

  Although the grayness of his flesh was a hue that might, in any other instance, appear mordant, in the case of the Silent Ones, all of whom were in incredible physical condition, it was an indication of vigor and health. The young man’s black hair, which shone like the wing of a crow, was looped into a single, large knot. He was lean-muscled and carried himself perfectly straight. Now Cley could see that the Sirimon skull depicted on the chief’s chest was not all there was to the design, but the blue line image that was the entire skeleton of the dragon wrapped around his body. The trail of rib bones tapered down one leg, around the back, and then up the front of the other leg to end at the groin, as if his member was meant to stand in for the tail spike. In keeping with the nature of the design, this part of the chiefs anatomy remained perpetually in a state of semi-erection.

  It was true summer now, and the day was hot with little breeze. They trekked across the gently rolling hills for most of the morning. The chief moved effortlessly through the heat, and Cley had a sense that if he hadn’t been along for the hunt, the younger man would most likely be running. Although slightly weakened by his recent illness, Cley had no problem keeping the pace and actually welcomed the exercise.

  Sometime past noon, Wood flushed a large creature with a hairless, wrinkled, brown hide and enormous eyes set into a misshapen cow head out of a grove of trees. It made a horrid gasping noise as it lumbered into the open on toed feet instead of hooves. Cley, almost on reflex, lifted the rifle and fired one bullet. The beast staggered a few more steps before falling to the ground. The hunter reached down to retrieve the stone knife from his boot as he approached his kill. Wood raced up behind the thing where it lay twitching on the grass. As was his practice, Cley moved in to finish the job with his blade, but before he could make the cut across the throat, he felt a hand on his arm.

  With a powerful shove, the chief spun Cley around and onto the ground. The hunter rolled over twice, dropped the knife, but managed to keep his hold on the rifle. The young man then leaped backward himself, away from the dying creature, bringing his spear up in front of him for protection. Seeing this, Wood also backed off. The chief leaned over and lifted Cley’s knife off the ground. Once it was in his hand, he shoved the tip of his spear into the prey’s forehead. The beast grunted, its bottom jaw opened as if on hinges, and a snake as long as the rifle shot out from deep inside the animal’s bowels. In the same instant, the chief threw the knife. To Cley’s amazement, the blade twirled end over end and pierced the head of the serpent, affixing it to the ground. The snake wriggled wildly until its host died a few minutes later. Then it expired at the same moment, as if the two had shared a common life force.

  Cley, having learned the signal for “many thanks,” shifted his eyes back and forth repeatedly. The chief pulled the blade out of the head of the yellow snake and handed it back to the hunter. Both men stared at each other. Cley smiled, and the chief made his imitation of a smile. The hunter, not to be outdone, tipped his hat and bowed. The young man then rolled his eyes, stuck out an exceedingly long, gray tongue, and touched his nose with the end of it. Cley understood that there was no topping this last amenity and turned to continue the hunt.

  They traveled on for another hour until coming to a vast grove of fruit trees. No more than a hundred yards inside of it, Cley heard a thunderous racket in the distance that sounded like the stampede of a herd of large creatures. The chief stopped walking and began moving from tree to tree, gathering leaves. He walked slowly beneath the branches as if inspecting closely the leaves he would pick. Cley and Wood looked at each other with a shared confusion. When the chief had collected a handful of leaves, they continued w
alking.

  The noise that filled the day grew more deafening as they proceeded through the grove. Cley moved cautiously, expecting to come upon its source at any moment, but they walked for another full hour, the sound steadily increasing in volume. When they finally broke clear of the trees, they were standing on a cliff overlooking a waterfall, the enormity of which made Cley clear his eyes. He now knew the destination of the river-flood of the flatland. More water than he ever thought existed fell, every minute, over the brink and down into the huge canyon below. Spray billowed up and obscured the view of the river at its base. The vapor washed over them, and multiple rainbows arced through the sky above the natural wonder.

  “Beautiful,” Cley said aloud, knowing the chief could not hear him.

  Wood hung back by the tree line, obviously afraid of the bellowing waters of the flood.

  The chief turned to Cley and put his hand out, indicating that he wanted the rifle. The gun was given over. With the leaves in one hand and the weapon in the other, the native proceeded to the edge of the cliff. Cley steadied himself and then also moved up next to the rim. He watched in disbelief as the young man, with no show of emotion, tossed the rifle out over the edge and down into the cataract of water and mist. The chief then turned to the hunter and stared at him.

  Cley was reeling from the sudden loss of the weapon that had been his security for the extent of the journey. “Why?” he asked, unable to conceal his anger at the reckless act.

  The chief headed back toward the grove, tossing the handful of leaves over his shoulder. The flat green ovals flew out above the canyon and were buffeted into the sky by the updraft from below. Cley stared, still in a state of shock over his loss. The leaves ascended, and at one point, came together with the appearance of joining in midair. Their texture changed from the slick, stiff petals into a billowing, twisting, scrap of material of the same color. The veil flew northward for a few hundred yards before breaking apart into the leaves again, which fell slowly out of sight.