But then it occurred to him that he didn’t know where Amaedig was. He drew the blanket off him, then paused as he noticed that the arm which had been slashed by her knife was now neatly bandaged. There was no pain and the wound felt greasy from a salve put on it.
Amaedig was lying a little ways off. She was awake, and was sitting against the railing, watching the rowers.
He crawled over and sat beside her. They watched i wordlessly for a while. The song went on. The water rushed past. Somewhere a monster of the river coughed.
“Have you noticed something?” she said at last.
“What?”
“They’re all old men. Every one of them.”
Indeed, now that he looked, he saw that all of them had long white or grey beards. Like their leader, they wore their hair down over their shoulders, and this too was white or silver.
“Who are they?”
“No idea. I was hardly more awake than you when they carried us aboard.”
“How long ago was that?” he said.
“I don’t know. Since dawn, I guess.”
The sky was pitch black above.
“Dawn?”
“Yes, look.” She pointed ahead and to the right—the direction the sailors would call the starboard bow—at a thin line of grey sky. It was the faintest dawn he had ever seen. Suddenly it came to him that it would be the last. The only lights left now in the whole universe, it seemed, were the ship’s own.
“I heard of a witch once,” he said, “who wanted to kill a man. She conjured his image in a bowl of water, which she kept covered with a lid. Every night she would remove the lid and glare at the image with all her hate. The image glowed with the light of the man’s soul, but gradually it diminished, and when the light was gone entirely, he died.”
“And?”
“What if the world is like that, and when the daylight is gone—”
“Let’s not talk about it. There’s nothing we can do now.”
They slept after a while. Ginna dreamt that he was a small child again, running barefoot with Amaedig through some vast, dark, damp tunnel, looking for a way out. He was not frightened. They were playing. Their shouts and laughter echoed in the fathomless distances. It was a pleasant dream.
He awoke to silence. The crew had drawn in their oars, and the ship drifted with the current.
“It is well that ye be waked. I watched ye sleep, and know ye to be of mortal flesh.”
He looked up, startled. The leader was standing over him, smiling, his thumbs hooked in his belt. He wore a long sword in a jeweled scabbard, which sparkled by torchlight.
Stiffly Ginna got to his feet He realized his bladder was full.
“Where do you—?”
“Where do you what?”
“Ah... ah…” He gestured vaguely. The man understood.
“Perform a euphemism? Over the side, ye fool! Then join us down below.”
He and Amaedig climbed down to the lower deck, where all the men sat among the benches, eating from bowls. A brick stove heated a pot of stew.
They were given food and drink and a place to sit. Ginna looked from side to side uneasily, wondering what was expected of him, but everyone went on as if he were not there. It was the first properly cooked food he had eaten since—when? He’d lost track of time since they left the caravan. It was all a jumbled nightmare.
When the meal was over, the leader clapped his hands once, and suddenly they were surrounded by solemn, hoary faces. Ginna felt sad looking at them. He was not afraid. They reminded him, every one, of a pair of kindly old men he had known and forever lost, Tharanodeth the Guardian and Hadel of Nagé.
The leader sat down before him. “I am called Arshad,” he said.
“We are... Ginna and Amaedig.”
“Welcome among us, Ginna and Amaedig, for it was revealed to me in a dream that something would happen while we camped at a certain spot along the river. So we did, and ye came. For some purpose, it is certain.”
“Yes, to get away from what was chasing us.” said Amaedig.
“No, it was something more, perhaps not known even to yourselves. I dreamed it.”
“I have had many dreams,” said Ginna.
“So do all of us, but were the dreams deep or shallow? Anyone may dream of some little thing, or learn that his sheep are menaced by wolves because he sees it in a dream, but those are petty things. Few have deep dreams of vast import.”
“Well I don’t know if I do or not,” said Ginna, and he went on to relate some of his dreams. Before he scarcely knew what he was doing, one thing led to another and had to be explained by yet another, and he was telling them the story of his life, from the time he had first visited Tharanodeth to those events of the past few days. He omitted, however, any hint of magic in himself, what Hadel had said, or even the fact that he could make light with his hands. But he told of what he had seen at Kaemen’s banquet, how his soul had travelled far in the night to confront The Guardian, and what had become of the caravan. He explained how he and Amaedig had chanced upon Arshad and his company by the water’s edge. All listened in polite silence. When he was done, Amaedig was the first to speak.
“Now wait—meaning no discourtesy to you, generous sirs, but we have told you much of ourselves, and still we know nothing of you—”
“Fairly spoken,” said Arshad. Turning to Ginna, he said, “Young lad, your friend is right. Put not all your gold on one side of the scale before the other has shown any of his.”
“But you asked—”
“No matter. Listen, both of ye. We are the Tashadim, a brotherhood formed when all of us were as young as ye are. We heard the call of the great warrior-prophet, Tashad, who had a deep vision, telling him that one day the world would be filled with darkness, and his followers would seek an island of light, the final refuge, and there fall one by one, fighting bravely to the last. All of us who believed devoted our lives to his teaching, waiting for the day. Perhaps ye wonder why we are all so old?”
“Yes, I—”
“It is because ours is a hard creed, and not a very attractive one. When the end came, though, we were prepared, while all others were beset as were ye. A few survivors must surely wander about, but in all our long voyage we have met no others.”
“Then, has the world ended?”
“Certainly it has changed, never to be again what it once was. Our past is lost forever.”
“What became of Tashad?”
“He went to seek the isle ahead of us. He spoke his prophecies as he died, and all of us saw his spirit rise up from his body clad in armor bright as the sunrise, with a golden spear in his hand and a silver shield on his arm. First he rose slowly, then hovered above us. It was a sacred mystery, even then. We fell to the ground, covering our eyes, but he spoke to us, saying, ‘Arise and take up my sword and my shield.’ When we uncovered our eyes, he was gone.”
There was silence for a little while. Ginna could think of nothing to say. The water was silent. They were far out from shore, in the middle of the broad river. Only the ship seemed real, floating in the darkness like a tiny world in the vastness of space.
“And now,” said Arshad, turning again to Ginna, “a tale I shall tell to ye. There was a man who built a boat. He put all the planks in place and caulked all the seams, except one. So the water rushed in through that seam, sank the boat and he drowned.”
Again Ginna didn’t know what to say.
“That’s not much of a story... is it?” he managed.
“No, it is not. The one ye tell is much better, for ye are a seer of deep visions. I know this. But I know also that something is left out of your telling. Ye have not told all,” Arshad gazed at Ginna, patiently but intently. The boy felt himself melting before those eyes. He could not hide anything. This man read his mind like an open book.
Trembling, he brought his hands together and parted them. A ball of light rose, then fell. He caught it with an outstretched hand, bounced it up again, and let it fall
onto the deck, where it winked out. With a speed that brought a startled yelp from him, Arshad bent forward and grabbed both of Ginna’s hands, turning them over again and again, scrutinizing them. He pushed the boy’s sleeves up to the elbows. Then, just as suddenly, he let go and stood up.
“This is surely a great sign. But I do not understand it fully. I must meditate on it.’
He retired to a small cabin at the rear of the vessel, beneath the deck on which Ginna and Amaedig had awakened. The others removed the rope loop which had held the tiller in place, and took the tiller in hand. The two passengers found themselves ignored between two rows of changing oarsmen. After a while they went up by the helmsman.
“What did Arshad mean when he said it was a great sign?” Ginna asked him.
The helmsman spoke the language of the Guardians, but with an accent so heavy he could scarcely be understood.
“He... be to mean... very holy man not know what mean... but discover out.”
They couldn’t get any more out of him. So they sat at the edge of the deck, watching the rowers working and the river gliding by. There were two more breaks for meals. Arshad did not reappear for either of them. Then, as most of the men lay down to sleep, the leader came to the door of his cabin, at the bottom of a short stairway, his chest at deck level. All attention was on him, but he said nothing, looked about briefly, and went back into his cabin.
* * * *
The faint band of grey on the horizon faded once more, and the sky was wholly black. After supper, all but the helmsman and a lookout on the bow slept, and the vessel was carried by the current. When they woke, the darkness was unchanged. The crew broke fast, then rowed.
When “day” finally came, Ginna and Amaedig sat on the foredeck, chatting with the lookout there. All three peered ahead into the gloom.
“You’re lucky you came to the river where you did,” the man said. “Here cliffs drop right down to the water’s edge. There’s no place to land.”
The man’s name was Yanotas. He was from Laedom, a country of many marvels. Gradually he warmed up to his listeners, and with little prompting told of his homeland.
He was in the middle of a spirited description of a temple built entirely of little golden bells, all of which rang different notes when the wind blew, when suddenly the water in front of the ship began to heave up and churn into white foam.
A wave crashed over the bow, knocking Yanotas off his feet. Ginna felt himself being swept along the slippery deck, but caught hold of the railing and clung there. He looked back to see Amaedig fall off the edge, down among the rowers.
There was much shouting as men were tumbled from their benches by the sudden force of their oars. The ship rocked and began to veer from its course, turning one side to the water which was not bubbling and splashing as if displaced by a mountain rising swiftly beneath it.
Ginna thought of whales. He had never seen one. He wondered what a thousand would be like, breaching all at once.
The sail twisted askew, the crossbar swinging around against the mast. Yanotas was crawling across the precariously swaying deck. The crew was in confusion as oars snapped off in their holes. Some men were down, flattened as another wave caught the oars and broke over the vessel.
Arshad emerged from his cabin, knee-deep in water, bedraggled, but shouting orders. Men raced to obey. Some scurried up the mast to furl the sail. One lost his grip and fell into the river, his scream lost in the thundering of the water. Others wrestled with the tiller. The remaining oars were drawn in.
All this, Ginna knew, had taken place in a matter of seconds. But no more time was needed: with Arshad to lead them, the men began to set the vessel right. When the next wave came, the prow sliced through it. The lookout, who had gained die railing next to Ginna, let out a cry. The boy looked forward and he too shouted in astonishment.
He was used to peering into darkness by now. He could see clearly enough that there was a mountain rising out of the water, impossibly huge against the faint glow of the western sky. There was a broad, curved shape large enough to be an island, and then this was entirely above the surface, supported by a thinner but still massive column. He could not fully grasp its size. He thought this moving thing might be as large as Ai Hanlo Mountain, as absurd as his reason told him that was.
Still it rose. A head on a neck. Something broke the surface with yet another thunderous wave, setting the ship reeling. The new object rose and fell, its dim form suggesting a flipper longer than the vessel by a good deal.
Arshad bellowed another order. Swords whipped out of scabbards. Lanterns and torches were lighted as best they could be. A man scrambled up from below with a large metal lantern. This was set up on the ship’s prow. Torches were set within; when the door of the lantern was opened, the light reflected off its three mirrored sides, and a steady beacon was produced. Now they could see what threatened them. The company stood ready to face the monster.
Monster it was. It was definitely alive. The whole river erupted from unseen bank to unseen bank as the creature’s wings emerged. The sky was blotted out as they spread. Their glistening expanse reflected the torch and lantern light. The full length and breadth of them were too great for Ginna to imagine, as was the size of the body, thicker than he could see, rising endlessly up into the sky like an avalanche of flesh.
The thing bent around and down. An enormous face was visible for a brief moment, with a gaping mouth wide enough to engulf cities, and round, white patches where the eyes should have been.
The creature was blind, he realized. It was totally oblivious to their torches, their lanterns, their brave sword-waving. Some of the men threw spears at it in their excitement, without visible effect. The neck straightened. The head shot upward out of sight; the body rose like the sheer side of a cliff. Except when a flipper went by (they did not seem to be in pairs) it was hard to tell that the thing was moving. There was another blast of turbulence as a second set of wings, fully as immense as the first, burst forth and unfolded above the surface.
Ginna heard the leader’s voice but couldn’t make out the words. He was huddled in a waterfall. The railing strained. He felt his grip on it going. He held on with all his strength, but still he was slipping.
Then, suddenly as it had begun, the thundering of the creature’s passage diminished. The waves were less fierce. He looked ahead and saw the tail of the thing tapering down from the sky like a cyclone. Then it was no longer touching the water. Swiftly it rose out of sight. There was a single clap of thunder from above, and all was still.
The river grew calm almost at once. The ship drifted. Only a few of the torches still sputtered. The lantern had been swamped. The torches were relighted or replaced with dry ones.
Amaedig climbed up to where he still clung to the railing. She was soaked and shaken, but the terror had passed, leaving her exhausted and shivering with cold. She sat by him for a while, saying nothing. He was silent too as the sailors went about their tasks, putting the ship in order.
“It must have been a mile long,” he said at last. “Longer. I think it was one of those creatures of the new world. We mean nothing to it. Do you suppose that sometime, when the change is completed, creatures like that will look on the remains of what we knew and wonder, as we did, at the ruins? Tharanodeth and me, I mean. What will they think?”
“I don’t know...”
“I think they’ll remember light, but only as an abstraction. It will be utterly foreign to them.”
“I suppose so.”
On the lower deck, the men stopped their work. Arshad led a kind of service. His followers chanted, pointing their swords at the sky.
* * * *
The oarsmen were rowing again, singing a low, melancholy song about the hopeless defense of the last tower of the last fortress. “With a sword in my hand and light in my heart till the end” was the refrain. The lookout joined in, as did the other man now stationed on the foredeck to direct the lantern. Even Ginna and Amaedig sang the refrai
ns. Arshad had returned to his cabin. The ship crept cautiously downriver.
They passed two mountains which came to the water’s edge. The beacon was played over the cliff faces on either side, revealing immense carvings, bulky figures in armor wearing crowns, a naked superman wrestling a dragon, a school of fishes swirling around a lady with outstretched hands. Beyond the carvings were stone buildings hewn out of the solid rock. Overhead a natural bridge had been shaped to resemble a man-made one. A squat tower stood in the middle of the span. A stone bird was frozen in flight at its top. A gust of wind blew and the bird let out a long, low wail.
No one knew what place this was. Ginna asked Yanotas if it were all right to call Arshad and ask him, but his sole response was a slightly shocked, “No.”
So they watched in wonder and silence as the river carried them under the bridge, past the walls and houses and towers which grew out of the mountainside like toadstools in the morning. When these things had passed away behind, and two wide plains stretched away on either side to meet the darkness, the singing resumed. The song was very simple, and after a time Ginna was allowed to lead. After each of his lines came a response and oar strokes in time with it.
Night came on. The western sky went black. The song changed into something braver, to defend the company against the spirit of darkness.
All paused for an evening meal of biscuits and fresh fish. For all the world had changed, the river was still full of fish. A man was catching them with a hook one after another. Ginna noticed there was no bait on the hook, but did not ask how it worked. It occurred to him that the Tashadim had been very kind to him and to Amaedig, but still they were a mysterious order preoccupied with oaths and secrets, and it might abuse hospitality to inquire too far.
As they sat eating a man came to Ginna, touched him on the shoulder, and said, “The master will see you now.” He rose at once, and Amaedig rose also, but the man shook his head and bade her be seated, then sat down beside her and joined in the meal. Alone, Ginna went to the cabin of Arshad.
The Shattered Goddess Page 14
