Thunder God

by Paul Watkins

  ‘If I move,’ he whispered, ‘it pecks me.’

  Then, as if to punish him for disturbing the silence, the seagull jabbed him in the ear with its yellowy beak.

  For a long time, Olaf sat there with a seagull for a hat. Eventually, the bird flew over to the bow and sat on the walrus skull, which it pecked with a dry clacking sound, as if somehow the walrus had displeased it, too.

  It was now too hot to wear our heavy woollen cloaks even after dark, so we made shirts from old pieces of sailcloth, which we stitched together using iron needles and leather cord.

  Late one night, Olaf shook me awake.

  I sat up. ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Out there,’ he whispered, and pointed across the water.

  In the light of a sickle-blade moon, the calm surface of the water was ruffled by the vast plain of weeds.

  ‘What is the matter?’ I asked again. ‘I do not hear anything.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he whispered.

  And then I understood. It was as if the silence itself had come to life. All the weeds and birds and fish, each alive by themselves, had somehow merged to form a single living thing that watched us with a thousand unblinking eyes and did not want us here. We had become trespassers, as suddenly and clearly as if a voice had spoken to us from the black heart of this weed-choked sea, telling us to leave.

  As quietly as we could, afraid of disturbing this angry stillness, we rowed our boat out to the open sea, raised the sail and caught the wind once more.

  With the water sliding past our hull again, we looked back at the island of weeds but it had disappeared. We felt as if we had woken from a dream, which might have folded us forever in its gently choking arms.

  We discussed the possibility of heading north, but even if Olaf and I could have taken the strain, we felt sure the boat could not.

  ‘What we must to do,’ said Olaf, ‘is put in some place, careen the boat on a beach and refit the hull. The way it is now, we have no choice except to let the wind carry us on until we reach land.’

  I did not answer, because we both knew that there might be no land ahead, and that this boat might sail on long after we had died, cruising out under the cold light of the moon, which would shine on our wind-polished bones.

  I woke up slumped over the steerboard with a crick in my neck. Opening my gluey eyes, I watched the sun climb ragged-edged from the sea, casting weak and coppery light over the waves.

  Olaf lay sleeping on one of the rowing benches, hands folded across his chest.

  Just then, something caught my eye. I stared past Olaf towards the horizon. At first, I thought it was a mirage, but the more I looked at it, the more certain I became that it was land.

  It was well behind us and to the east. We must have sailed past it in the night.

  I woke Olaf. He looked out into the glare, shielding his eyes. ‘No mistake!’ he shouted. ‘That is an island!’

  My heart jumped into my throat.

  I prepared to swing the steerboard and jibe the boat.

  ‘Wait!’ shouted Olaf, holding up his hands. ‘The wind is too strong. The cracks in our mast are too deep. If we lose the mast, we will not be able to steer over these waves. It is not worth the risk, and there may be more land ahead.’

  In silence, we watched the island disappear beneath the waves. Even though we had missed landing there, the sight of land was enough to give us hope.

  All day, a stiff breeze pushed us on. I was so restless that I could not sit still, and stared at the horizon until I no longer trusted my eyes. Blood-warm air swam around me, running its fingers through my long and tangled hair.

  Olaf paced the boat like a cat, sniffing the wind for the smell of land, but there was only the lung-hollowing salt air of the sea.

  That evening a large black bird appeared over the boat. It had long, pointed wings, sharply jointed in the middle, and seemed to hang in the air, more like the shadow of a bird than the bird itself.

  When the bird turned away to the west, following the path of the wind, we set our course towards it.

  *

  Thunder.

  It was the middle of the night.

  I had been asleep. I lifted my arm from across my face and saw Olaf sitting on his whale bone seat, thoughtfully scratching powdered salt from his beard and eyebrows.

  He glanced at me. ‘Sounds like another storm,’ he said, with resignation in his voice.

  The wind had dropped. The dew-soaked sail hung empty.

  Thunder. There it was again.

  I sat up and craned my neck around, searching for the bank of dingy clouds which marked the storm. If we could catch the wind right, we might yet steer clear of the fire-hawking chaos that it seemed to promise. The noise came again but this time it did not sound like thunder.

  I stood and stared into the dark. My eyes had been narrowed so long now against the sun and wind that when I opened them wide, salt dust crumbled from the creases in my skin.

  Olaf, too, had noticed that something was not right.

  We searched for some pattern in the moonlit clouds that might have tricked our eyes.

  Slowly, the truth dawned on us that the sound we heard was not thunder, but the crash of surf against a windward shore.

  ‘There!’ said Olaf, and his arm pointed towards the west.

  Against the star-flecked darkness of the night sky, we glimpsed a white band of breakers, stretching as far as I could see to the north and south. Beyond the breakers, we could just make out low-lying ground, which seemed to float on a bone-white strip of beach.

  Fighting against the urge to run the boat straight at the land, not caring if we wrecked it on the reefs which probably lay between us and the shore, we convinced ourselves to wait until daybreak, when we could find safe passage through.

  We rode in a little closer. Then, because the wind was gentle, we risked a jibing of the boat and sailed along the coastline. The breeze carried the dry and heavy scent of land. Here and there, the long-leafed silhouette of a palm tree stood out against the night sky.

  I had seen palms before, on the coast of Africa, but we had been sailing south and west and were nowhere near Africa now.

  ‘I do not care where we are,’ said Olaf, ‘as long as it is land.’

  After sailing a long while without finding a break in the reef or any light from fires, we jibed the boat again and tacked back up the coast.

  For both of us, it seemed the longest night we had ever spent.

  At daybreak, Olaf went to the bow and began looking for a passage between the breakers. The sun rose behind our backs, making the sand glow pink. The ocean was a brilliant blue, diving into darker colours as the water grew deeper. Big, long-beaked birds flew just above the level of the waves. They made almost no movement with their wings, as they glided on the currents of air.

  It was mid-morning before Olaf found what looked like a gap. I lined up the boat, while Olaf held the sail lines ready, studying the water. Under his breath, I heard him counting out the sets to mark the seventh wave.

  The gentle colours of the morning disappeared. Now the white sand raked our eyes with its glare and the sun weighed heavy on our backs.

  On the fifth wave of the next set, Olaf pulled hard on the sail line, pocketing the wind. The boat surged forward. By the time the seventh wave slid under our bow, I had the old walrus skull aimed at the gap. The boat seemed to gasp as it rose up in the water, carried by the force of the waves. From the corner of my eye, I glimpsed jagged rock the colour of rusted iron just beneath the churned white surf. Then we were past it, into the brighter blue of shallow water. I rode the wave until it scattered into foam. Then I turned the boat broadside a few hundred paces from shore and Olaf heaved the anchor stone over the side. The rope slithered over the side and then grew slack as the anchor reached the bottom.

  The rustling of leaves reached our ears.

  ‘That is the most beautiful sound I have ever heard,’ said Olaf.

  On the beach, trees with
short, tangled branches and round leaves as big as my outstretched hand grew almost to the edge of the water. Only a few of the taller palms grew here, unlike the dense groves I had seen in Africa. Bundles of green nuts the size of a man’s head bunched beneath the leaves and some of these had fallen on the sand, sprouting bright green shoots.

  After untying the rowboat from its place just forward of the mast, we heaved it in the water. Then we loaded the bailing bucket and two empty water barrels, as well as our weapons.

  While Olaf rowed us to shore, I looked over the side and saw fish darting about in the shadow of our hull. Once the bow of the boat ground up against the sand, we jumped out and hauled it clear of the waves. Grains of the white grit clung to our wet legs, and the unfamiliar effort of dragging the rowboat painted our faces with sweat.

  Reaching the shade of the trees, we turned to look out at the Drakkar.

  It was in even worse condition than we had thought.

  The warped hullboards had grown a fur of weeds. A stubble of barnacles clustered on the steerboard. The sail was tattered almost into uselessness.

  Olaf shook his head. ‘New mast, new steerboard, tar for the hull. And we have no tools for the job.’ Then he looked at me. ‘Wherever we are, this may be our home from now on.’

  With the handle of my axe, I traced a ring in the sand. Then Olaf and I knelt inside it and gave thanks for being alive. But even as I prayed, I felt as if we had strayed too far beyond the boundaries of our world for our voices to be heard.

  Searching for signs of people, Olaf walked in one direction down the beach while I walked in the other. We both returned without having found anything more than bird tracks on the sand.

  Then we took the bailing buckets and headed into the jungle in search of water, marking tree trunks with our axes as we went. The further in we travelled, the denser the undergrowth became. We took off our shirts and tied them around our waists. It was hard work struggling through the vines which thatched the sandy earth. A short distance inland, the ground turned muddy and we came across a small but deep pond filled with bluish water, sunk into the pale and crumbling rock.

  Crouching at the edge, I reached my hand into the water and then tasted it off the tips of my fingers. ‘It is sweet,’ I said.

  Olaf dropped to his knees and we both lapped up the water like dogs.

  Back and forth through the jungle we carried the buckets, until we had filled one rain barrel.

  Slumping down against a palm tree to rest, we watched the Drakkar roll sluggishly in the surf. The long-beaked birds glided silently over our heads, the tips of their wing-feathers spread like human fingers.

  I picked up one of the green palm nuts which lay in the sand beside me and shook it, hearing the juice slosh inside.

  Olaf cut off the top of one and gulped the sweet and salty milk.

  Soon, we were surrounded by green nuts with their tops chopped off, and our stomachs gurgled happily. For a long time we just lay there, feeling the motion of the waves still rocking in our heads.

  Olaf lifted the black stone hammer from his chest and let it fall again. ‘A lot of good this has done me so far.’

  ‘I tried to tell you,’ I said.

  When I received no reply, I looked over and saw that he had fallen asleep. I untied the shirt from my waist, rolled it up and stuffed it under his head for a pillow.

  I had no memory of falling asleep myself, but when I opened my eyes, the sun was setting.

  Olaf stood down by the water, staring out to sea in the rose-coloured light which filled the air. Ghost-pale crabs skittered back and forth across the beach behind him.

  I walked down and stood beside him. As I watched the tired sun crumbling into the waves, I wondered how many people were out there, stranded on nameless islands, who would never see their homes again. Perhaps we were among them now.

  When the sky turned purple with the closing in of night, we remembered our hunger and sharpened long driftwood sticks into spears to do some fishing. At first, we had no luck. Small fish nibbled on our toes, but the larger fish kept their distance.

  Knowing they would have to be drawn in, I set the tip of the spear on the top of my foot and pressed down, gritting my teeth, until I felt the metal cut my skin. When I looked down at the water, I could see a silky thread of blood seep from the wound.

  Soon the larger fish were coming to inspect.

  The first one I struck, nailing it to the sandy floor with the point of the spear, was red along its back and as long as my forearm. I set it out on the sand and returned to the water, sand sticking to the wound in my foot.

  By then, Olaf had also speared a fish. He held it up, grinning. ‘Better get a cooking fire started,’ he said.

  I dug a hole in the sand and lined it with dead leaves and strips of clothy bark from around the base of the trees. I was just turning to Olaf, to ask if he had brought the flint and iron striker from the boat, when I heard him cry out in pain.

  He stood in the surf, his arms and chest draped with what looked like pieces of black string. He had dropped the spear, at the end of which a small a fish was thrashing. Olaf’s eyes were closed and his teeth clenched. Staggering forward, he dropped to his knees.

  I ran to his side, grabbing at the wet black strings that laced his skin. The moment I touched them, pain ripped through my hands, tearing across my stomach, over my back and down my chest. I screamed, back arching, and tumbled into the surf. Waves boiled around me, filling my hair and eyes with sand. A strand of black weed clung to my arm but when I went to sweep it away, fresh pain jolted the length of my arms. I looked down and saw some of the dark strands across my legs. The pain seemed to be coming even from inside me now, glowing and pulsing like embers. I could not understand what was happening. I rolled in the surf, trying to esape the black threads.

  Olaf had crawled as far as the trees, but then he collapsed, face down in the sand.

  With nausea climbing into my throat, I used a twig to lift the remaining strands from Olaf’s body and then from my own.

  Pain blotted out my vision and slammed it back into my eyes, glittering with brassy sparks. Now I was struggling for air.

  Olaf’s mouth opened and closed, like the fish he had left dying on the beach.

  The burning swayed through me. Darkness flooded my eyes. I felt myself falling, as if from a great height, out among the melting frost of stars.

  *

  A man stood over me, blotting out the sun, his outline rimmed with fire. I could not be sure if he was really there or if this was one of Halfdan’s friends, conjured from the pain which still encased my body.

  The man did not move.

  I wondered how long I had been unconscious. I raised one hand to my face and tried to sweep away the grit that had collected in my eyelashes. It had blown up against my legs in tiny dunes. On my arm, I could see where the strands had draped across my skin. Neat lines of tiny brown dots marked my flesh, as if I had been methodically burned with the tip of a red-hot knife.

  Olaf was lying beside me, eyes closed, his hair and beard filled with sand.

  I could not tell if he was alive or dead.

  I heaved myself up into a sitting position. The strands still lay in the sand beside me, and in the daylight I saw that they were not black. Some were blue, others dark red. I kicked out feebly, trying to bury them in the sand, then my gaze returned to the man. Only now was I thinking clearly enough to be afraid of him.

  He was short and broad-shouldered, with a wide face, almond-shaped eyes and dark skin. His shiny black hair had been cut in a straight line across his brow and over his ears. The only thing he wore was a cloth tied around his middle and another piece of the same material draped like a cloak across one shoulder. In his right hand, he carried a short spear tipped with black stone.

  I had never set eyes on anyone who looked like this man, not even in the slave markets of Baghdad, where I had seen men and women stolen from tribes so remote that the names of their people were not on
ly unknown but unpronounceable to us.

  From the look on this man’s face, he had never seen anyone like Olaf and me either. He seemed to be deciding whether or not to kill us.

  I was in so much pain I hardly cared what he did. I would have lacked the strength to pick up my axe even if he had handed it to me. My head slumped forward. I waited for him to make up his mind.

  The man jabbed his spear into the sand. Then he squatted down, pointed at the brown scars on my arm and said a word I didn’t understand.

  I sighed and shook my head, to tell him of the pain, then watched in amazement as he lifted up his loin cloth, set his legs apart, and pissed on me.

  I felt a flash of anger that he would insult me like this before finishing me off, but then the pain suddenly began to melt away. I was so relieved that I actually held up my arm to make it easier for him.

  Then he pissed on Olaf, splashing his chest and his legs.

  Olaf’s eyes flickered open and he groaned.

  When the man had finished his business, he brushed the loin cloth back in place and began to talk in a strange and stuttering language. He pointed at the boat, then out beyond the breaking waves towards the horizon, all the while looking at us.

  Olaf raised himself up on one arm. ‘Who is he?’ he asked me, his voice a croaking whisper.

  ‘I do not know.’ Lying next to me, I saw the fish I had been about to cook the night before. Its scales were puckered and dry, the eyes filmed with sand.

  ‘What happened to us?’

  I shook my head. ‘I do not know that, either.’

  Slowly, Olaf and I climbed to our feet.

  The man also stood. He stepped back and watched us, the spear in his hand once again.

  I said a few words of Latin and Greek and a few of Arabic, but they meant nothing to him.

  With one clawed hand, Olaf scratched the grit from his hair.

  The man was staring at him. ‘Kukulkan?’ he asked, screwing up his eyes.

  Now we realised he was looking at Olaf’s hair.

  For a long time, he regarded Olaf, as if waiting for him to do something. Then slowly the man reached out and touched the black stone hammer which hung around Olaf’s neck. ‘Kukulkan,’ he said again, but this time there was no questioning in his voice.