by David Mason
“It will be soon,” she said in a low voice.
“I didn’t believe it,” Daniel said, looking. “Not till the dolphin spoke to me. I thought… well.” He laughed sharply. “Then, that message. The creature talked, damn it. It did.”
“Of course it did,” Ammi said. Then, “Message?”
“One of your sea folk,” Daniel said. “It seems his… masters, I suppose they are… wish to speak to me, but I’m to go to visit them. Apparently they don’t want to travel.”
The girl was staring at him with a strange look.
“What are you talking about?” she said in a tight voice.
“Somebody, or something called a Morra-ayar,” Daniel said. “Do you know what they may be?”
“Of course,” she said, still in the same tense voice. “Man, are you saying they sent for you? The Morra-ayar?”
He looked at her, surprised. “Of course. Why, girl, what’s the matter? You look…”
“The Morra-ayar,” she said, stepping back; she looked at him with something close to terror. “They are… the gods.”
“Oh, come,” he said, chuckling. “The sea dweller said they were like himself, only larger.”
“No,” she said. “They are…” She stopped. “I cannot tell you. I know only what is said of them.” Her eyes were wide. “And that only a few men in all our history have seen them. The mighty Narr the Builder, and the first sea-king of Thandira… but no ordinary men, ever. Daniel…” She stared at him, “Daniel, who… what are you?”
Daniel looked at her and shook his head. “Girl, I’m no special person, as far as I know. I’d never heard of these beings, whatever they are. And I’m not sure I can find them, or that I’ll even try to find them.” He laughed. “Gods? There are no gods.”
“We call the Morra-ayar gods,” she said.
He looked at her serious expression; the girl meant it. It was the language again, he thought; just when he had been fairly sure of the meanings of words, a new meaning would turn up. “God,” now. He had seen images and icons, in what he had assumed were places of worship; and Ammi had used that word to describe the images. They were “gods,” she had said; old-time things which nobody knew anything about anymore.
“The Morra-ayar are not our gods,” the girl said, as if she had been reading his mind. “Those you saw… they were like us, and people prayed to them. No one prays to the Morra-ayar.”
“Are they—well, dangerous then?” Daniel asked. “Evil?”
Ammi shook her head. “No, you do not understand. They—they are not bad, not good.” Her eyes became wider. “But if they call a man, he must go. How can you say you will not?”
“I only said that I hadn’t made up my mind, Ammi,” Daniel said. He stared toward the beach and the silent groups that waited there. “I would like to know… if these Morra-ayar can really tell me… why I’m here, how I got here. But that’s only curiosity, after all. If it did any good to know how it happened, I might be more anxious about it.” He chuckled. “And it’s possible these Morra-ayar don’t know, either, whatever they are.”
“They know everything,” Ammi said.
On the beach, people were beginning to stand up and a few had already entered the water; out in the bay, the sun struck lances of glittering light on the sudden ripples. A shining dark form leaped and splashed back, then another.
Daniel, moving toward the beach, was suddenly afraid. He did not know what he feared; it was a deep, stomach-twisting terror, reasonless and huge. He had felt that kind of fear as a child, once, in a dark pine wood, walking alone. He had been eight or nine, he remembered. And there had been no reason at all, only the green silence and the shadows. It was like that now.
But Ammi was going, with long strides, toward the beach; her face was shining with a strange, blind ecstasy as though she were drugged. Daniel, following, could not speak of his fear now, he knew.
More and more dolphins leaped in the deeper water; huge ones, Daniel saw. He could not quite remember what the average size had been, in his time, but these seemed bigger than those he had seen. He remembered that one sort had been called a killer whale, and the cold knot of fear within him tightened; but he set his mouth hard, and walked down into the water.
Around him, the others were discarding their kilts, tossing the skin garments back toward the beach as they went into the water. Daniel felt the strange vibrating sensation in his legs again—the same pulsing that he had felt the day before, when the other sea dweller had spoken to him. But this was deeper pitched, and different; it was like hearing a sound through his skin, the sound of a chorus of voices.
He plunged forward and began to swim; others were swimming all around him as the sound in the water grew stronger.
Egon’s muscles knew what to do, Daniel realized; this body he wore was the body of a strong man, a skilled swimmer. He found himself stroking effortlessly, plowing ahead of the others, though Ammi was close behind him. And now the skin sound was enormous; it was as if he floated within the pipes of a gigantic organ. It was a little like Bach, Daniel thought, dizzy from the sound. It was as though his mind, flooded with the sound, thought it was vanishing, to be replaced by a rising brilliant light. Without conscious thought about the matter, he was diving down, down into the depths, and all around him he saw the others diving too.
All around the swimmers, the Sea People swam in a complex spiral, upward and downward, weaving in and out. They sang as they swam; a counterpointed web of sounds in which there did not seem to be words, but images, clearer than language.
Daniel, turning and spinning with the rest, knew with total clarity what the images were, but he could not turn them into words. With the part of his mind that still observed and listened, he knew the singing could never be made into words; the images could exist only here and now.
Then he saw Ammi, a white glimmering shape; she touched him and they moved together, weightless. Together they rose to the surface, after an eternity, and leaped half out of the water, as others were doing all around them. It was like the joyous leap of the Sea People, a great draft of air filling the lungs, and then diving down again, and again.
Daniel, deep in the green water, saw a child flying by, and a great dark shape beside it, and others, like birds. The music went on and on, increasing.
Now he was no longer an individual being; he had become a particle of light, an atom in a single great being. The creature of which he was a part sang in one voice now; the chant was a cry of joy at aliveness and being. The creature was made of human swimmers, and of dolphins, and of smaller creatures as well; of beings from the rooted sea anemones on the muddy floor to the giant orcas that sailed around the circle’s rim. And it was One; rejoicing in itself, in the sunlight that poured down through the water, in the spinning earth.
It was impossible to tell when or how the dance had ended. The swimmers had staggered wearily ashore, one by one, and scattered to their houses; the sun had gone down and the mist had risen heavily on the bay.
Daniel woke and saw a faint greyness at the window. He was sprawled across the bed, only partly covered by the skins. His skin tingled with the salt rime that had dried on it, but it was not unpleasant. And he saw his breath, misty in the cold; but he did not feel chilled.
Ammi slept, half-across him, one arm about his neck. In the dimness he could see only the pale hair and a vague shape; but he could hear her slow, contented breathing. A sharp, pleasant odor of salt came from the hair that lay across his shoulder.
He stared at the window, trying to remember.
He had wondered why the Vanir had nothing that seemed to be a religion; it seemed to him that almost all primitives had myths and gods. Now, Daniel realized, they needed nothing as simple as an idol.
He tried to recall what he had read of ancient Hindu ideas, Buddhist theology, a whole scrap pile of fragments from books from the world he had lost. None of it had made much sense, Daniel remembered; muddy notions about the unity of life, about time and sp
ace and the ocean of Brahma. Now, he thought, he was beginning to see what they had all been talking about, back there. And why they’d never been able to explain it all clearly.
Or reach the thing they talked about, either, he thought grimly. The image of the world of his birth rose, sharply clear in his mind, bright and terrible; a world of steel and glass, where the sun shone dimly through a poison mist on the surface of a dying sea.
We hated everything that lived, Daniel thought with an inner shiver. Because we couldn’t speak to the others, they had to be enemies.
An airplane dove and fire slashed out; an eagle exploded into a cloud of bloodstained feathers.
The bones of bison lay, mile after mile, beside the railway tracks.
A great iron ship opened a gaping door, like the mouth of a monster; steel cables drew a dying whale in while the stink of death fanned out behind the ship, across the sea.
Daniel blinked and rubbed a hand across his eyes. The girl made a faint sound and shifted a little; her eyes opened sleepily.
“At least we didn’t leave ourselves out,” Daniel muttered aloud, looking at the girl. “We killed each other, too…”
But he had spoken in English. Ammi stared, uncomprehending; then she lifted herself on one elbow, to face Daniel.
“You were speaking in your own language,” she said in a low voice, her eyes on his. “Were you… thinking of the other? Of your own woman?”
He grinned slowly. “You’re my woman,” he said; his hand came to her smooth shoulder. But she stayed, her face expressionless.
“I do not blame you,” she said. “I, too… I thought of the other.” But he noticed that she had not used Egon’s name now. He smiled at her again.
“I was not thinking of any other woman at all,” he said. “And certainly not then.” He made a playful grab and laughed. “As if any man, with you, could have time or wish to think about another woman.” Suddenly her mouth came to his. When he could, he added, “Or strength enough, for that matter.”
Later, Ammi said, “I do not care, Daniel.”
“About what?”
“If you have others,” she said. “As long as I am your woman.”
“I told you,” he said. “It wasn’t that.” He stared at the window; the light was growing now. “I thought… about the place I came from. Not about… Sheila. Other things.”
“Do you wish to go back there?” Ammi said in a low voice.
“I think it’s probably impossible,” he said. “No. I’m here. This is my world, and you…”
“You must go to the Morra-ayar,” she said.
He sighed and sat up. “Maybe,” he said, pulling at his black beard; flakes of salt came away in his fingers. “I’ll go looking for these gods when I’m ready to. And for some part of the earth that’s a little less frozen. Trees, and birds… I’m beginning to miss them, suddenly.”
“I have seen only the small trees, in the gardens,” the girl said. “And the stumps, where the greater ones were, out there. And there are few birds here.” She sat up, watching him. “Where you lived; was it as they say it was here, in Eloranar, before the ice came?”
“Some of it was,” he said. But not much of it, he thought. He looked out into the light. “Northward, there’s land of all kinds. People, too, I’d guess. And soon there will be no one left here.’
“We could go with Gannat and the others,” Ammi said.
Daniel laughed. “In a tiny shell, with hardly room to turn around? Two more aboard Gannat’s boat would sink it, I think.”
“There are a few other boats,” she said.
“Like Gannat’s,” he said. “Well… if I’m going to risk open ocean… and the South Atlantic, at that… I could be better pleased with something more strongly built. Nor depend on dolphins to navigate, or get me out of bad weather. I knew a bit about boats, in my world.” He rubbed a hand across his tangled hair.
“A large, strong boat?” Ammi said thoughtfully.
“Large enough,” Daniel said. “There may be a few others who would wish to sail with us.”
“The young man you saw me speaking with, Banar…” And she laughed. “The one you feared would take me. He said that there were fine boats, four or five of them, still in Tavis.”
“Where is that?” he asked, turning.
“Tavis? It was a village, a day’s walk along the coast,” she said. “There was a river, frozen now; and many fishermen. Banar said that he had gone there once and that there were still boats, in a covered place. But he said that he could not pull any of them to the water alone, and that there is much snow in the way.”
Daniel chewed his lip thoughtfully. “It may be worth having a look, anyway,” he said.
Banar, a round-faced, curly-headed young man, seemed to accept Daniel and Ammi’s new status without a trace of annoyance at his own rejection. From time to time he looked a trifle enviously at Daniel, but he was vastly pleased to hear of the idea concerning the boats.
“Ah, they’re fine boats!” he told Daniel. “Better than any we had here; big as two of ours, and made of a strong black wood, something that does not rot at all. They were on a platform, so.” He shaped it with his hands, expressively. “And there were sails of cloth, rolled up. They would not even need to be caulked! But there was ice, everywhere,” he concluded, looking worried.
“Could we walk there in a day?” Daniel asked.
“I think so,” Banar said. “And my friend Galta, he will help, too.” He called out and a strong-looking youth came, grinning shyly.
Ammi insisted that she must go, as well, and the four of them made ready with all the furs they could collect, heavy wrappings on their feet, and such tools as Daniel thought might help. They went up along narrow trails that led zigzag through the cliffs; and finally, out onto a ragged plain of snow. A bitter wind blew, and they could see the whitecaps of the whipped ocean, far below. “Brr,” Daniel said, looking seaward. “Do you see that, Ammi? Now, that’s why I’d want the best boat I can find.”
Banar, ahead of them, laughed over his shoulder.
“Let’s not stand and freeze, you there!”
They walked on and on; the snow, reasonably hard packed, made a fair footing most of the time, though there were difficult places. Inland, the ghostly skeletons of a forest showed on the higher ridges; sometimes they passed heaped shadowy shapes that Banar said had once been villages.
“Many lived here, once,” Banar said sadly. “Here, where we are, there was a great road.”
The wind had dropped and they made even better time now. The sun was still up when Banar cried out and pointed ahead.
Here, a valley had curved toward the sea; the trace of the buried river still showed. In the bend there were shrouded roofs, a snow-cloaked village of many houses, and where the frozen river’s ice still showed, there was a long, barnlike structure.
Banar led them down and they managed, with difficulty, to dig the snow away from an entrance. Within, enough light filtered through roof openings to illuminate the place with a grey glow; the boats were there, six of them, on a beamed platform.
Daniel stopped, looking at them with a pleased grunt They were big enough; the largest was fifty feet or more, he thought, and wondered momentarily how they would be able to move that huge hull. Damn it, I’ll move it, he thought fiercely, if it takes me a year.
Ammi and Galta busied themselves getting wood together; there were broken pieces everywhere, as if the place had been a boat-building workshop. While they built a fire under an open part of the roof, Banar showed Daniel the boats as proudly as though he had built them himself.
They were double-ended, high in prow and stern, very like the pictures Daniel recalled of Viking longboats. The wood was strange to him, a very dark, close-grained stuff that reminded him of black walnut. Within, the frames were made of what he thought to be oak; there were copper nails studding the sides. It was beautiful work, obviously done with skill and affection.
They were all single-m
asted, the masts lying down with their booms along the flush deck; frozen canvas was rolled about each boom. Daniel, attempting to pull a corner loose, found it too tightly icebound to move, but the material resembled canvas, at any rate.
Under the deck there were spaces obviously meant for sleeping, and a dozen long oars of white wood; there were empty chests and frozen coils of line. It was as if the builders had gotten everything ready for sea only the day before, and then stepped out of the building, never to return.
Banar, at first, took it for granted that they would try to move the smallest of the boats, a craft about thirty feet long. But Daniel had set his mind on the big one, and was determined about it.
“It’s no harder to move one than another,” he pointed out. “Once it moves, it can slide. On rollers, do you see?” He indicated the round logs that leaned against a wall. “I think they used those to do it.”
The fire burned well now, and there was food in their packs. The four gathered around the blaze, warming themselves and eating, talking in low voices. In the ancient building, it was as if the ghosts of those old builders still listened; maybe deciding if these were worthy recipients of their work.
The heat spread slowly through the place; there were odd creaking sounds and the dripping of water. The sun had set; in the darkness a wind had risen, keening on the roof.
“Once we have it down on the ice, it will slip along,” Galta said, looking up at the big hull. “There’s open water, farther down.”
“We could fall through the ice and drown, of course,” Banar said cheerfully. “Daniel, do you think we will be born again, in that future world of yours?”
“Not if you’re lucky,” Daniel grunted.
“Lucky?” Galta looked puzzled. “But, Daniel, you told us strange stories… wonderful things. Men who flew in the air like birds. I’d like to do that, I think.”
