“No,” their father said. “We don’t leave the ship until we get word.”
Khumi said, “Oh, and when did this revelation come in?”
“The last time I checked, Son, I didn’t owe you any explanations. The fact that I often give them anyway has perhaps caused you to forget?”
Khumi pushed himself from the table with a scowl, and shuffled aft.
Iyapeti bowed his head. “I was just discussing possibilities, not trying to cause trouble. I didn’t know he would do that.”
“I know,” A’Nu-Ahki said. “And I like to hear your ideas and suggestions. I just don’t find it necessary that they come framed as challenges. In and of itself, the boat plan is quite reasonable. But we’re not doing this thing in and of ourselves—that’s partly what got Nestrigati and the Floodhaveners killed. There’re too few of us to take that kind of risk.”
U’Sumi asked, “What about an animal?”
Everybody looked at him as if he had just called down thunder.
It took U’Sumi a moment of picking at his food to order his words. “An animal—some of the birds have had plenty of young—ravens, for instance. We could spare one with no risk. They can fly at the first sign of trouble from the sea. They’re also foraging birds that might bring something back. If life’s on the outer slopes—enough to interest a raven—then it may not even come back at all.”
Iyapeti said, “If it doesn’t come back then how can we know anything at all?”
U’Sumi nodded. “Good question. Here’s how. Either way, we learn something about conditions beyond the caldera. If it’s all still ocean and stone walls, a raven can’t hover to pick things off the face. But if the waters are gone, something may be growing—ferns, mushrooms, insects, or small amphibious creatures—that survived on floating vegetation, that has begun to resume a natural life.”
“It’s better than doing nothing,” Na’Amiha said, who dished out some more wheat meal into her husband’s bowl. “And it might send a message to Khumi that you’re not unconcerned about the situation outside.”
A’Nu-Ahki glared at her a second, but then his eyes softened. “You’re right,” he said. “Let’s go to the aviaries and fetch us a raven.”
U’Sumi’s stomach relaxed.
A short time later, the whole family crowded around the stern shack window, and watched the black bird fly to and fro within the caldera. Except for the ship’s cover, it found no place to land amid the sheer, slippery rocks on every side. The raven showed no interest in rising above the walls for a long while. A distant howl of high winds prevailed beyond the crater, and across the blunt mountain peak to the east.
Khumi said, “I think a boat would be much more productive.”
“We know,” U’Sumi muttered under his breath.
The raven shot up into the winds above the rocks. An invisible force hurled it westward over the cliff tops like a fly. The helpless black dot disappeared behind the wall, over the grotto where the waters leaked out.
After an hour or more, the crew began to tire of watching for the bird’s return. Tiva and Sutara turned and slowly made for the ladder, while Iyapeti wandered aft to continue some repair work on the quickfire wind generator. It hardly functioned any more inside the sheltered lake.
Khumi threw up his hands. “So much for the bird expedition!”
A’Nu-Ahki and U’Sumi remained, with their wives, after everyone else went below.
No one held out any hope of ever seeing the raven again, much less that the bird would return aboard ship. Nevertheless, A’Nu-Ahki set himself to watch anyway. Five days after the release his patience was rewarded.
He examined the grotto daily for any increased visibility of the water outlet. One day he noticed a flurry of motion where the surface of the lake disappeared into a cave behind several boulders. It was where the ripple had been before the water level sank to expose the cave.
The raven fluttered up from between the rocks with something small and white in its beak. When it reached the arch of the grotto, it dropped the tiny object and then dove back behind the stones. After a moment, A’Nu-Ahki saw it rise again. This time, something limp and orange hung from its bill. The raven had managed to survive on mollusks during its stay on the outer slopes, and from there had discovered the grotto opening and re-entered the caldera.
Nu mused aloud. “That tells me something, but not enough. If the raven feeds on shellfish, it says nothing about how far the waters have retreated—perhaps not far at all. On the other hand, in order to get the shellfish, the bird must have found a secure perch in a reasonably untroubled shallow pool; that looked like a clam of some kind.”
Nu watched, as the raven flew about the caldera after its meal then return to the grotto, where it disappeared again behind the pointed rocks.
“Perhaps we had the right idea, just the wrong kind of bird.”
T’Qinna awoke, and clutched her husband. The deck shook to the sound of water rhythmically slapping against the hull.
U’Sumi got up, clasped his wife’s hand, and dragged her out the door of their stateroom, taking time only to wrap her in their blanket. They paused before crossing the galley to the mezzanine ladder, T’Qinna noticed that the vessel did not roll and pitch as it had at sea. The deck vibrated in small circles—back, forth, left, and right—so tight that she saw the motion by watching a spot on the deck between her feet.
U’Sumi held the blanket around her as they climbed to the loft. A tremendous crash echoed in from outside, as he opened the bow window.
The waves of the crater lake emanated from the cliff walls and bounced off the ship in strange resonant ripples. The crash came from a gigantic scarp from the summit slope that tumbled into the caldera about six hundred cubits to the north. Boulders fell from crumbling ramparts all around the pool, sending huge plumes of water high up into the air. Fortunately, the anchorage sat well out from the walls, and none of the falling rocks immediately endangered the ship. As the earthquake continued, however, it seemed their shelter might collapse around them on every side.
A loud pop shot from the outlet grotto. T’Qinna only half noticed the terrified raven streak from its shelter as the cave partially fell in, increasing the height of its ceiling. Her fear subsided some when fewer big rocks fell from the crater walls. Then everything changed.
Barque of Aeons lurched into motion. A feathery white current drew T’Qinna’s window toward the grotto with a growing roar.
U’Sumi shouted, “Water must be escaping down the outer slope!”
“Smaller fissures have opened along the wall!”
T’Qinna’s knees buckled at a dull thump through the decks. A low grinding sound came from below, as the split armored keels scraped bottom. The great ship grounded for the first time in the giant mud trap at the bottom of the crater lake. The deck settled more level than they could have hoped, as the waters split around them until their roar slowed to a rush, and then a trickle. The quake eased to a mild rocking sensation, and gradually ceased. What remained of the lake resumed a placid surface. A ring of gently sloped mud flats had emerged between the surrounding rock facings and the water.
Again, the raven caught T’Qinna’s eye. It flew back and forth, far above the collapsed scarp from the plateau, a lonely black dot against the steel gray skies. Then it struck her.
“He’s flying above the summit!” she cried, pointing out the window.
“The winds have died!”
A shuffle from behind caused them to turn. A’Nu-Ahki entered the bow shack with a cooing male dove in his hand.
“I felt us run aground in the quake,” he said. “The hull pool has bottomed out in the mud. I went to the aviaries from there.”
U’Sumi asked, “Why a dove?”
“It gathers plant material for nesting, and eats seed. I want to know if anything’s growing beyond the caldera.”
T’Qinna watched the raven return to its place in the enlarged grotto. Except for a tiny tongue of the pond that wound
between the now taller teeth-rocks on one side, the cave opening stood at the top of a gentle rise. The black bird appeared to forget the terror of the quake, when he landed near the rocks, and set about poking the mud for sea worms.
A’Nu-Ahki released the dove out the window. T’Qinna watched it flutter upward in a great spiral. Once above the escarpment, the dove flapped westward, into the unknown world unveiling itself below.
With nothing to hold their attention any longer, T’Qinna, U’Sumi, and A’Nu-Ahki went below to the day’s business.
After her shift, T’Qinna returned to the bow window. She found A’Nu-Ahki seated in the console chair like a mahogany statue, waiting for the bird. He appeared to be in one of his deep contemplations. T’Qinna circled to the window, and leaned on the sill, facing him. It seemed that a wild consuming torment continuously created, destroyed, and re-created entire worlds in her father-in-law’s ocean-blue eyes. She suddenly felt his weariness, and almost wilted under the leaden weight of her own limbs. Then she broke herself free, and turned to look outside.
A flapping came from the eaves.
Before T’Qinna could reach for the returning bird, A’Nu-Ahki snapped up and stretched his arm out the window. The dove lighted on his bare hand, docile, and as exhausted as his master seemed.
“His feet aren’t wet, and there’s no dried mud between his claws,” the Old Man muttered. “I don’t think he found a suitable landing place, not even on the summit. He’s not like the raven, you know. There’s apparently no growth on the peak to attract his fancy. We’ll give it another week.”
He took the dove back to the aviaries.
T’Qinna stared sullenly out at the lifeless gray clouds and dark rock walls so barren, cold, and wet. Will E’Yahavah create for us a new Aeden in that mire below? Or will we descend into a lifeless Umara in an endless Desolation of Nhod?
Taanyx gave birth to a litter several days after the dove excursion. Tiva and T’Qinna attended the much beloved sphinx in her stall, and counted six cubs. They ranged in color from black, to spotted, to striped, like their mother, and varied in size due to the mixed breeding of their pygmy father.
“Is it true that we’ll only find desolation outside?” Tiva asked, as she closed the spigot into the cats’ watering trough.
T’Qinna averted her eyes from her friend. “I don’t know.”
“You’ve been to Nhod, and seen the giant Cup of Umara’s bitterness. What if the ground is cursed for us like it was for Qayin?”
“It can’t be. How would we be able to start growing things again?”
“The poisons of Umara have been swept up and relayed, T’Qinna. I’ve wondered about it. Umara was only one falling star. A’Nu-Ahki said he saw dozens fall during the first day of World-end. If he saw dozens at Akh’Uzan, then probably hundreds or even thousands must have fallen throughout the world! If each one carries the poison of Umara…”
T’Qinna said, “I think you’re frightening yourself needlessly. First, we don’t know that all falling stars are poisonous—maybe Umara was an oddity. We know of no others until World-end. Second, we don’t know if stars fell evenly in all parts of the world—even if they were all poisoned.”
“But if the waters haven’t flooded the opening of the grotto in a month, shouldn’t something be growing out there, like grass?”
T’Qinna smiled for Tiva’s sake, but felt as though her face cracked at the effort. She still asked herself the same terrible questions. “We don’t really know the grade of the slope, or how far away the waters have gone. Don’t you think it’s a bit soon to draw conclusions, good or bad?”
“Maybe, but Khumi doesn’t. He’s a good engineer who’s studied the ways of rushing waters, and made all sorts of notes and stuff.”
“Well, I’ve studied the ways of animals—how they breed, and the seed codes of their different kinds. Giving the beasties a sheltered few months to have their first litters makes a lot of sense. It may be that E’Yahavah is simply thinking of them in keeping the world inhospitable for just a little while longer. We still have plenty of supplies.”
“I suppose.” Tiva sighed. “I just wish I had your confidence.”
T’Qinna laughed. “Like I have a great deal of confidence? Don’t you think I’ve asked all these questions too?”
“So you’re not sure either?”
T’Qinna stopped. “I’m sure E’Yahavah got us this far, so he’s…”
“I know! I know! He’s not going to leave us stranded or something like that. I’ve heard it enough times. It’s just… I don’t know how much longer I can stand being cooped up in this ship! Since we went aground, there’s no wind—the air’s stifling, even with every loft slit open.”
“I know.”
Tiva ran a trembling hand through her curls. “I’m not trying to be discouraging—but I’m not strong like you!”
The tiny stall seemed to close in on T’Qinna. She remembered A’Nu-Ahki’s words to her, during Sutara’s madness. Tiva’s comment brought home the frightening awareness of how much the two other young women looked to her for support. Why do they think I’m so strong?
“I’m not really all that strong,” T’Qinna said, unable to bear Tiva’s searching eyes. “I just think we need to keep things in perspective.”
There was an aching emptiness in Tiva’s voice; “The whole world is dead and buried beneath us. I’m not sure what ‘perspective’ is any more.”
A’Nu-Ahki’s shouts yanked Tiva back from her late afternoon nap. She almost woke up screaming.
Khumi had already scrambled out of their divan, and left the cabin. Tiva wrapped the blanket around her and followed at a groggier pace.
In one hand, A’Nu-Ahki cradled a dove, in the other a green leaf.
“Olive!” the Old Man shouted. “The dove brought back this leaf from a cutting that must have taken root outside on a lower slope!”
Khumi asked, “When did you send out the bird?”
“Just a little over an hour ago. I figured a week was enough time for some new growth. I expected grasses, or small scrub—but nothing like this!”
Tiva watched T’Qinna take a closer look at the leaf.
“That’s almost mature!” U’Sumi’s wife cried. “Could E’Yahavah have specially created an orchard for us outside?”
Iyapeti said, “Don’t get too excited. Olives can grow from broken branches if the wood’s green. This one maybe came from a limb that floated out the Deluge, and sprouted on the slope. Olives are hardy that way.”
T’Qinna’s face sank. The shifting of the leopard spots on the outer sides of her cheeks made it easy to read her expressions.
Tiva had a dreadful thought. “Did olives grow in Nhod?” she asked.
A’Nu-Ahki smiled at her. “I saw some stunted ones on the slopes by Sengrist’s camp, on the western edge of the wastes. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Tiva said, as a chill wrapped its tendrils around her.
“Now we should definitely build a landing boat!” Khumi said.
“Not so fast,” answered his father.
“What now?”
“The mud outside is still too soft. I’ve watched the rockslides—none of the rubble piles up on the mud between the cliffs and the pond. It sinks into the slime—rocks fifty times the size of a man—until totally covered.”
“The raven lands by the grotto! That’s where to look at the outside!”
“Not yet.”
“Then when?” Khumi’s outburst scared the dove up into the rafters.
A’Nu-Ahki faced his youngest son with cold, calm eyes, and answered, “When the order is given. Not before.”
Nu brooded at the open bow window again. He sat in the compass console chair, waiting for some opiated pain powders to dull the throb in his back and legs. An old hip injury sustained fifty years ago, in the sewers of Aztlan, jabbed his lower spine. He, U’Sumi, and T’Qinna had escaped the Temple laboratories of Pandura through a manhole. Nu had landed hard on hi
s rump. Like the broken ankle, it had never healed properly.
He stared outside at the cliffs. Hardened pillows of striated lava twisted like macabre gray layers of tangled corpses in a chaotic bas-relief. Writhing titans, encased in stone, were seemingly bound to smaller men in a frozen orgy of death. The longer A’Nu-Ahki stared at the cliff face, the more the volcanic masses of undead appeared to awaken and squirm. He could hear their voices scream up to him in torment—rock-sheered wind moaning through the grotto—the opening of Under-world’s glutted pit far below.
Nu had just released the dove again, and forced the stone giants to witness his little harbinger of hope dance provocatively in their faces.
A week had passed since the bird returned with the olive leaf. Now A’Nu-Ahki wanted to see if conditions outside would be fair enough to compel the bird to stay, or if shelter in Barque of Aeons was still preferred.
The dove never returned.
How far and how widely across the myth memories of mankind do the ripples of the great flood spread?
Very widely indeed. More than 500 deluge legends are known around the world and, in a survey of 86 of these (20 Asiatic, 3 European, 7 African, 46 American and 10 from Australia and the Pacific), the specialist researcher Dr. Richard Andree concluded that 62 were entirely independent of the Mesopotamian and Hebrew accounts.
—Graham Hancock
Fingerprints of the Gods
14
Prism
T’Qinna stood up from visiting Taanyx and her cubs, only to find Iyapeti hovering at the gate of the stall. His eyes shifted under thick golden brows,
“Can we talk?” he asked.
“Sure, what’s on your mind?”
The Tides of Nemesis (The Windows of Heaven Book 4) Page 30
