by Meredith
“And then?”
“He didn’t say. If an old man’s eyes can see, though, he loves you.”
“He should have come to me.”
“Then his mission would have failed. Do you love him?”
Among the Galayi this was a question not ordinarily asked—too close to saying, “Are you crazy?”
“We are passionate for each other. If we have to live in another village, we will. If we have to live in a cave, we will. If he dies, I will throw my life away like a dirty rag.”
Awahi looked at her in fascination. He had not seen a Moon Woman since he was a teenager. That one was a queer old woman with only dogs for companions. Awahi never found out what happened to the man she loved or why she had no family then.
His mother told him that was what love did to you. To Awahi Jemel didn’t seem full of love—more like a buoyant ferocity.
He felt a pang of compassion for her, and great curiosity. “I don’t know what else to tell you, my dear.”
“Where has he gone? When will he come back?”
“I must not speak of his mission. I’m afraid. Today Inaj sent Zanda on Zeya’s trail, to kill him. I hope he survives.”
Jemel felt a stab of fear. Zeya… Then she wanted to throw mocking words, but she pulled herself back. Hope he survives. Ridiculous. It made her blood shriek against living like other people.
A-a-a-ark!
Her head shot upward. It was only a buzzard, but they never called out. Then she saw. Something big swung from his talons, swung by its… hair. She squelched an awful thought.
The buzzard flapped straight across the village common and dropped whatever it was carrying in the middle. It bounced three times and rolled to a stop.
She sprinted toward it. Somehow she kept from screaming, but dread gushed from her fingertips to her toes.
A head, yes, it was. She fell to her knees and threw up.
Someone ran up beside her and lifted the head by its hair.
The most horrible cry she’d ever heard fought its way out of Inaj’s throat, colored by every ugliness in the world.
Dangling from his hand, the head circled slowly. When it turned its face to Jemel, she saw it was Zanda.
Jemel’s eyes danced with elation. Inaj’s blazed with rage. They loathed each other.
SIX
Flying Between Worlds
40
Zeya was exhausted. He’d been walking for two weeks, and a lot of the time he’d been running. He hadn’t stopped to hunt but had only eaten what berries, nuts, and roots he found. Worse, he’d slept badly. The faces of the men he’d killed floated through his dreams. Though they seemed stoic, their eyes glinted dark with evil. Their lips, floating disembodied, told him at great length how they or their clansmen would take revenge. Zeya heard the words but didn’t understand them.
When he woke up in the morning, he said to himself, That’s all childish nonsense. He didn’t need to do anything but hurry to give the feathers to Tsola. If he needed protection, Su-Li would provide it.
But he was never easy, ever weary.
He stood on a high ridge and looked across a wide valley at the Emerald Peak. He was west of the mountain and further west of the Cheowa village at the mouth of the creek. In fact, he was on Thano hunting grounds. He thought, Dangerous for any Galayi, but not as dangerous as being among my own people.
He was sure that Inaj was having the trail to the Healing Pool and Emerald Cave watched. More murderers.
“Does coming from the back side eliminate the danger?”
Though it wasn’t really meant as a question, Su-Li shook his head no.
“So how do we get there alive?”
He had discovered over the last couple of moons that many times the best thing to do was nothing. Sit and think. Maybe an idea would come to him. Maybe he would see something. He wanted to get closer to do his watching and thinking.
“My friend, would you see if it’s safe to go down this mountain and across into the woods?”
Su-Li raised his wings to lift off.
“Find a cave for tonight,” Zeya said. They’d reached an accommodation. Zeya slept every night in a cave, and Su-Li slept in a snag overlooking the entrance.
Su-Li glided downhill.
“I’d be dead without you,” Zeya said to the buzzard’s tail.
This time Zeya wasn’t dreaming the faces of assassins. He was sitting and playing cat’s cradle with Jemel in front of her parent’s house. She laughed when he said something funny, but laughed kind of wildly. Once in a while she would glance off toward the trees. Zeya swallowed hard. One of her lovers was there, he knew that, waiting in the woods for him to go away so he could…
Then he realized.
He shushed her.
When they were absolutely silent, he could hear…
Whispers!
Whispers? He came half awake. He couldn’t make out…
A hand clapped onto his mouth.
His blood rushed. He twisted, broke free, and took a blind swing at the darkness.
“Hold your tongue!” said the low voice.
He swung again.
A hand seized his arm. “Quiet!”
He recognized that voice…
“It’s me, Paya. Mind the noise.”
Paya?
A hand pushed around in the embers of his fire. A twig burst into flame. By its light he could see… Paya.
“I thought you were…”
The hand clapped back over his mouth.
“Shut up,” Paya said in a wheeze. “We’ve got to get away from here. They’re lying in wait for you outside.”
“Su-Li would see them.”
“Not asleep, he won’t. Let’s go.”
“We’re trapped!”
“Not hardly. There’s a little passage back here. You never learn, and neither do they.”
The passage turned out to be tiny. Zeya had to shove his two bags ahead and slither through on his belly.
Beyond the squeeze and around a corner, Paya lit a torch. They walked and crawled for a long time, waded for a while, and came to one of Paya’s small camps, this one on the bank of an underground stream.
“Want to eat?”
Zeya put an arm around the Crab Man’s shoulders and embraced him. He guessed no one had done that in twenty winters.
“Want to eat? Paya thrust dried meat before Zeya’s eyes. He could see embarrassment on the Crab Man’s face. He took the meat and chomped on it greedily.
“You want the story,” said Paya. Pride filled his voice. “Ain’t hardly no story. I knew a way out. At the bottom of that pool, yes, a way out.”
Zeya shook his head in amazement.
“You mighta guessed that Paya knows every crack and crevice of this cave. I found that passage, it’s underwater, I found it before. You can feel the water moving and follow it. The other fella, he didn’t feel it, he laid there and died.”
“You swam out the bottom?”
“Yeah, Paya did. And that other fella, if he’d been able to see me or known any way at all, he’d a still laid there and died. Scared to swim down into the blackness, most people. Yes, they are, scared.”
“You’re a good man.”
He’d never seen Paya smile so big.
“How’d you find me?” asked Zeya.
“That was easy. The Seer, she’s expecting you about now, and she looked and looked. That one, she can see every bit of the Emerald Cavern in her mind. You and me, we have to go looking and find each nook and cranny. But not that one. She can see every little piece of it. She told me where you was and to come get you.”
“So we’re in the Emerald Cavern.”
“For certain. This un hardly ever leaves it.”
Zeya resisted hugging him again.
“I saved you, I did done.”
41
“You have days and days to sleep,” said Tsola. “I’m very excited now.”
She shook him lightly again. Zeya sat up, blinking. She
actually kissed his cheek.
“Magnificent,” the Seer said. “Zeya, what you’ve done is magnificent. I see you’ve turned your zadayi red side out.”
He gave half a smile. The zadayi was an accident. He wondered if she’d thought he couldn’t bring it off. He wondered if she knew how close he’d come to failing.
The panther got up, padded closer, and curled up next to his mother. Su-Li came along for the ride, rocking up and down on the panther’s shoulders. Apparently, the magical animals were friends.
Zeya gave Klandagi a sour look. “Panther disguised as a nice elderly gentleman, you threw me into the fire.”
“I am a nice elderly gentleman,” Klandagi said in a river-rapids roar, “and that was a good deed.”
Su-Li croaked. Zeya wondered whether the buzzard was saying, “Right!” or “You don’t know how many times this fellow almost messed it up.”
“Su-Li told me what happened,” Tsola said, “and I told Klandagi and Paya.” The Crab Man smiled and lowered his head, embarrassed.
Zeya was glad he didn’t have to go over the story—every bit of him was worn out, even his tongue.
“Have you guessed what’s next?”
“Too tired. My brain’s not working.”
“Then take this thought to the land of dreams with you. You will travel to the Land beyond the Sky Arch and present the feathers to Thunderbird. With them he will make a new cape for the Galayi people.”
“Whatever you say.” Zeya got a pallet, laid it near the fire, and rolled up.
His last glimmer of consciousness was a wish. He’d rather go to see Jemel than travel to the Land beyond the Sky Arch.
Zeya couldn’t tell whether he slept for days and days—how could anyone know, deep in a cave? He sat up and looked around by the faint light of the fire. He did feel rested, even restless.
“Hello, Son.”
It was his mother.
He grabbed her and hugged her.
“A-a-a-ark!”
Zeya laughed. He’d nearly knocked Su-Li off Sunoya’s shoulder in his enthusiasm. “I apologize, Sir Spirit Buzzard.”
“A-a-a-ark!”
He held his mother at arm’s length and looked at her face. It was furrowed and shriveled. She looked ten winters older.
“Mom, what’s happened to you?”
“It’s nothing.” She stroked Su-Li’s ruff.
“She didn’t tell you,” said Tsola. “She’s deeply connected to Su-Li. Without him she wastes away.”
“But he’s back now,” said Sunoya, stroking him.
Zeya grinned at her. “You came fast to get him.”
“Actually,” said Sunoya, “I came to kiss you and send you off to the Land beyond the Sky Arch. It is the journey of a lifetime.”
He looked at Tsola. “Now?”
“Are you ready?”
“I’m famished,” he said.
Klandagi rolled to his feet, stuck his face in a corner, padded over to Zeya, and from his jaws dropped a big deer roast.
Zeya gaped at it and said, “I think I’ll cook it.”
“Don’t cook my part,” said Klandagi.
When they finished eating, Zeya said to Sunoya, “Is it time?”
“It’s time.”
“We have to swim there,” said Tsola.
“Swim beyond the Sky Arch?”
She laughed. “No, swim to the Emerald Dome. You haven’t heard of it. Sunoya knows, she’s been there. Only Medicine Chiefs go there, to start their journeys. It’s a beautiful and miraculous room, but the main thing is, it’s a launching point, like a high rock for a bird to start its flight.”
“A-a-ark!”
Zeya said, “Do you want to go home, Su-Li?”
The buzzard looked from face to face.
“Funny, you’re not answering me. Well, anyway, Sunoya needs you right now.”
“There’s something you should know,” Tsola said. “The people closest to you, all of them, have given you certain gifts. I can’t tell you what they are, but they’re waiting for you beyond the Sky Arch. You’ll need them there.”
“Am I crazy for doing this?”
“Let’s go,” Tsola said.
“Take all your clothes off,” said Tsola.
Zeya hesitated. He could hear rustling, and he didn’t want to see a hundred-year-old woman naked. Not that he could see a thing in this absolute blackness.
“Don’t dally,” said Klandagi. “I have all my clothes off all the time.”
Zeya did as he was told.
The world he had now was sounds. He could hear Klandagi’s breathing. The stream nearby, flowing. Tsola’s feet as they padded here and there. He could feel a very gentle stirring of the air in the cavern, but he couldn’t hear it.
Tsola splashed into the water. “Follow me downstream,” she said. “It’s underwater part of the way. Do you feel disoriented?”
“Very.”
“Darkness does that. You can’t get into trouble underwater as long as you go downstream. Don’t turn around and try to swim upstream, that’s all that matters. You’ll run out of breath.”
“Okay.” He could feel a squirming in his guts.
“When you run into me, stand up. It will mean we’ve come back to the air.”
The squirming turned to terror.
“It’s best if you don’t think about it. Remember, your mother did it, every Medicine Chief has done it. Relax and don’t worry. Let’s go.”
He heard her step into the water.
“Reach your hand out to the left.”
He did and she took it. Then he remembered that she could see in the darkness, and was embarrassed.
She gave his hand a little tug. “This way.”
He hesitated.
“Go!” roared Klandagi.
He put one foot into the chill water, and then the other.
She pulled him and they splashed gently along. “In a moment we’ll come to a wall.”
After a few steps she put his hand on the rock. “I’m going to let go, then swim underwater. You follow.”
She did. Taking an enormous breath, he dived in.
42
Air. I need air.
He swam. Alive, but no air.
Tsola’s voice sounded inside his head. Relax and don’t worry.
He made a deliberate effort to relax his body and make the swimming motion easy. My mother did it. The hundred-year-old woman in front of me is doing it.
He imagined himself as a turtle. He peered into the dark, watery universe with turtle eyes, he thought with a turtle brain. He felt what it was to be an aquatic animal.
I need air. His chest was swelling with desperation. Turtles take a big breath and hold it, too. They’re easy with keeping breath in and swimming along.
He told himself that the current was helping him. Yes, I can feel it. He kicked his feet and swept his arms back, going faster. He had liquid arms and legs, boneless, like a turtle’s. He made his head flow back and forth, like a turtle’s. Sometimes his turtle claws scraped the sides. Am I in a tunnel?
What I’m touching, it might be stars, it might be fish, and I may be beyond the moon. I may be in the depths of the ocean.
His turtle body spun. He lost track of which way was up, which was down, which was sideways. After a pang of fear, he discovered he didn’t care.
He gave up. His body was turning, and, yes, he might gulp water instead of air.
His head banged into flesh. Rising, he discovered that he was standing back to back with Tsola. I was swimming upside down!
He touched her in the dark with his hand. That made him hope it was her back he’d bumped into.
She took his hand. “Now we walk.”
They did.
“Now we swim again. This one’s not as long.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “You’ll know when you get there.”
She was gone.
He didn’t want to do it. Fear dribbled down his body like icy rain. I can’t do it. Crazy to throw my
self into the arms of fate like that. I’ve seen dead men the last few moons. Dead men live inside my skull now. I can’t do it.
He looked around. He felt the blackness more than saw it. I am standing alone, deep in the earth, absolutely blind and helpless.
He ducked his head under and went.
Topsy-turvy, turning round and round, and now it was worse than before—he had vertigo. He couldn’t control his body, couldn’t control his mind. He could identify nothing of the universe.
He began to sense light.
He thought to open his eyes.
In the center of darkness a faint spot of light!
An illusion, idiot!
The light grew, it widened, it reached out to him, it welcomed him.
I’m dying!
Light engulfed him, bright as a sky. But there is no sky down here! It was like blackness flip-flopped, and in its place was the center of the sun.
He stood up.
Light everywhere. Green light.
Impossible. He was in a room that was half a dome, cupped above by limestone, held below by a lake. The water was dark green, the air light green. Here, deep in the mountain, light was banished—yet the room was bright. The stone ceiling was a green sky.
Tsola smiled and said, “Welcome. Now you see why my home is called the Emerald Cavern.”
They sat on the bank entirely naked. Tsola was building a fire. She kept all the materials for a camp here, including food, firewood, and utensils. Zeya noticed a drum, and next to it a pile of the scarlet lichen, u-tsa-le-ta.
“We don’t wear clothes here. The Immortals require us to be our undisguised selves.”
Zeya was surprised that it didn’t bother him, and that in her way Tsola was beautiful.
He said to her back, “How can you swim all that distance? I could barely do it.”
She half-turned to him and said, “Well, I’m used to it, and I age at about half the normal rate. I’m in my fifties.”
“Half?”
“All the Seers do that, and their families. It’s a secret, and you must keep it. The waters of the Healing Pool? Within the cave they have even greater powers. Anyone who drinks that water every day ages slowly.”
“That’s why you don’t let all the people know.”
“We would be overrun. Only the Medicine Chiefs know, and one of them will be the next Seer.”
