They stepped into the companionway, and found barrels to sit on.
Iyapeti pulled some long wheaty hair from his eyes. “It’s Suta. She doesn’t seem to care about anything. If I ask her what she’s feeling, she just stares back and says, ‘nothing.’ If you’ll excuse my boldness in discussing it, trying to—well, have relations—is like trying to romance a statue!”
“Why come to me?”
“It’s just that you seem to have such an uncanny knowledge of how people think and feel—especially women.”
T’Qinna felt sick inside. “Because I used to be a priestess?”
Iyapeti hung his head. “Look, I don’t know why. I prefer to think it’s because you’re sensitive. Maybe this was a mistake…” He got up to leave.
T’Qinna grabbed his hand to stop him. “Wait. I’m sorry. I know it’s been hard for you. I wish I had magic answers for you and Suta. But her wounds are deep. They may take decades to heal. Just don’t give up on her.”
They both heard the shuffle on the deck behind them at the same time. Only then did T’Qinna realize that she was still holding Iyapeti’s hand.
Sutara stood by the hatch, with glassy eyes. “You can take the girl from the Temple, but not the Temple from the girl—eh, T’Qinna darling?”
The blood drained from T’Qinna’s face. She jerked her hand away from Iyapeti’s.
“That’s not what was happening!” Iyapeti shouted.
Sutara stepped toward them. Her dead eyes never changed as she spoke. “Never fear, my husband, I heard the whole thing. The heavens forbid that the wife of U’Sumi should ever do anything improper. She was just encouraging you not to give up on me. I get it. Still, I sometimes fear that our darling T’Qinna encourages us all just a little too much at times.”
T’Qinna’s breath left her. “I didn’t mean…”
“Of course you didn’t, darling. You never mean any harm—that’s the beauty of being you. You’ve learned our customs, and follow them better than we can; you’ve studied our ancestor’s writings, and know them better than we ever dreamed they could be known.”
T’Qinna had never felt so hollow. “I’m sorry, Sutara. I’ll leave you two alone now.”
Sutara didn’t blink. “Perhaps you should. I choose to take no offense at this. I choose, because I know I should care—even though I really don’t.”
Tiva sat before the cask of Atum-Ra, and the Three Gifts. The silence in the Hold of Relics—on the second deck, below the library—was like the trapped air in a sealed tomb. She did not know why she came there so often. The sight of the great sarcophagus only brought back memories of the old cave shrine, where behind that same coffin her brother had profaned the holy treasures with her. The mummy inside had heard their muffled breathing, smelt the sweat of her shame through sculpted gold-trimmed wood. At times Tiva still felt the defilement clinging to her like burning tar.
She rubbed the coal scar on her hand, and turned away again from history—a part of Atum-Ra’s history nobody alive, beside her, would ever know. No one alive…
Oh, but I must be a howling spectacle among the dead—an entire Under-world full of men, just watching, leering, and waiting for me!
None of the others ever came to this hold. Despite the bad memories that the sarcophagus held for Tiva, it would always be timeless and familiar.
The stale air thickened. Tiva somehow knew the Shadow would never leave her completely. At least it no longer had a human vehicle for its malice. But the eyes still filled her dreams, and the hot breath still stank against her neck. The sight of the relics both fed the beast, and kept it at bay.
“Do you miss them?” Na’Amiha’s soft voice asked from the hatch.
Tiva’s heart sank in the abyss. “I miss what they should have been.”
“Is that why you come here?”
Tiva turned to the bulkhead, unwilling to face either the relics or her adopted mother. She had hoped that no one would ever notice her visits. Not much chance of that trapped in this giant coffin!
“I don’t know why I come here. It’s a death-place, and yet my life is bound up in a cycle that spins around these relics.”
“You don’t need to try and break that cycle alone.”
Tiva’s heart froze. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The only thing more terrifying than the Secret was that the others might discover it somehow. Then they too could gape at me in their minds, and condemn me along with the First Father!
Na’Amiha said, “I mean the kind of cycle that can happen when a parent places upon a child burdens that ought not to be laid on children.”
“Trust me,” Tiva laughed bitterly. “I have no intention of repeating my parent’s sins on my own daughters—whatever they might have been!”
“Then the cycle must be broken. But you can’t do it alone, can you?”
Tiva almost burst open her terrible story like a great sore. Surely, Na’Amiha or T’Qinna had guessed some of it. But the sinking conviction that it could never work froze Tiva’s tongue before it could speak.
Na’Amiha squeezed her shoulder. “I’ve watched you for many years, Tiva. I know what it is to flee from wraiths. I too have bathed in their secret shame. I just want you to have hope. Their world is gone now. You don’t have to dwell in it anymore.”
Tiva looked up at her mother-in-law with uncertain eyes. “Thank you. I’m not sure I understand, but I want to ‘break the cycle,’ as you say.”
“Good.”
Yet Tiva was not comforted. In truth, she understood Na’Amiha all too well. She was just terrified of what it would take to go there.
T’Qinna looked up from her breakfast at a rap from the table’s head.
“It is New Year’s Day,” A’Nu-Ahki announced. “I’ve decided we can remove the covering over the aft end of the loft. Perhaps with the added height from the roof, we’ll be able to see through the grotto to the outside.”
Khumi muttered, “What if it’s still not enough?”
“Then you can use the planking from the cover to build a platform against the wind foil. I can’t imagine the foil not being high enough.”
Even Khumi seemed to perk up at this.
Sutara asked, “When do we start?”
T’Qinna smiled. It was the first real interest Iyapeti’s wife had shown in anything since her return, and T’Qinna wanted to encourage it—especially after their encounter in the companionway.
So apparently did A’Nu-Ahki. “After we eat, if you like,” he said.
Khumi already had several spikes removed from the overhead by the time the others caught up to him in the aft mezzanine. After an hour of chipping the kapar stoning from between a two-plank-wide section of the overhead, U’Sumi and Iyapeti began to crank open the extensor-brace they had placed between the deck and the freed-up slats. As soon as the crack of light became large enough to squeeze through, Khumi squirmed outside like a termite, to be first to breathe free air under the smoky sky.
T’Qinna followed U’Sumi, ‘Peti, and the other wives up the ladder, once they secured the planks in an open position. Everyone quickly gathered at the apex of the stern on tiptoes.
A tiny crescent of light creased the grotto’s vault from the other side.
After a moment of awe, and the surveillance of their immediate surroundings from the new vantage point, Khumi lost no time organizing the others in the construction of a platform against the great fin at the other end of the ship. They unpegged rows of stoned timbers and pulled them from the aft superstructure by a portable hoist jockeyed up onto the outer shell by a makeshift ramp from the mezzanine. By dusk, crisscrossed planking formed a squat cowling around the giant wind foil.
The young adults climbed the structure, peeking over the hump of the grotto’s interior at the outer world for the first time.
T’Qinna hugged the stoned teak with one arm while she peered through the great cave. At first, she thanked E’Yahavah that she saw no sign of any waters. Nevertheless,
her heart sank when her eyes settled over the dreary brown landscape in the vastness below. Worse than her memories of Nhod, the cameo of the outside world showed no sign of life at all, except for some sparse young grass by the grotto’s exit. She had worked herself to the bone all day, and waited a year in hopes of much more.
T’Qinna muttered, “I can’t complain, I guess. We’re alive.”
“Yes, we’re alive,” Tiva agreed in a bleak voice.
T’Qinna had not noticed her sister-in-law straddled on the top plank of the citadel, just an arm’s length away.
“We’re alive,” Tiva repeated, “and if that’s not global Umara out there, then I don’t know what is.”
Rains still came frequently enough that the water catches for the waste flushing system stayed three-quarters full most of the time. Access to the roof revealed that a mud bank had accumulated against the northeast quarter of the ship. It mounted from the sloped shore almost to the level of the starboard scuppers. Once solid, this peninsula of sediment would serve as a natural wharf, since it nearly met the elevation of the cargo hatch. The only question remained as to when it would solidify.
A few days after they removed the aft mezzanine cover, Khumi and U’Sumi decided to test the integrity of the silt bank. They lugged a five-cubit-long stoned teak plank down the gentle slant of the starboard covering to the edge, and dropped it on end into the mud berm.
The two brothers silently watched the slime slowly consume the timber. Like a snake engulfing its prey, the silt finally closed its mouth hungrily over the top end, until only a shallow dimple remained in the mud.
“A man could sink forever in that,” the voice of their father observed from behind. “Imagine what it must be like in the lands down below.”
Nobody had heard A’Nu-Ahki’s approach.
“I see your point,” Khumi said, staring at the dent in the mud.
“It won’t be much longer. One good dry spell ought to do it.”
U’Sumi asked, “When will that be?”
“Soon,” A’Nu-Ahki answered, “very soon.”
At no time was any sign of returning tide visible in the lower lands through the grotto from the wind foil platform.
On the first day of each week, the men dropped heavy objects, like planks and ballast stones, off the starboard eaves to test the mud. The dry spell A’Nu-Ahki predicted set in about a month after they opened the roof. Overcast skies brightened to a hazy off-white. The clouds never broke, but the crew observed the sun’s muted disk through the veil several times.
The outer shell replaced all other hideaways as the site-of-choice for personal contemplation or recreation. Being able to escape confinement, and the increasingly close air, raised everyone’s spirits—mostly. The desolation they saw in the landscape below dangled like a distant lead weight.
Many of the animals that had spent most of the voyage hibernating now became active, and needed a wider space to exercise. Others had mated during their long enclosure, and like Taanyx, were rearing young. With the ship aground, much of the former compartmental discipline was no longer necessary, except to keep carnivores away from the herbivores.
About five weeks after they opened the cover, the mudpack on the starboard side began to show signs of hardening. Ferns, mushrooms, and mosses began to grow in patches. Toward the end of the second month of the new year, the ground firmed up to the point that heavy dropped objects rested on its cracked surface without deforming it much.
Tiva awoke to find her husband missing.
The timer-controlled light pearl on their mantle showed the pale luminescence of pre-dawn. Its bronze dial indicated the pearl would not brighten for another hour. Khumi usually slept like a log at this time.
Then she heard muffled voices from out in the galley.
Tiva reached for her morning wrap, got up, and fastened the garment around her. As she made for the stateroom door, the speakers in the galley became more distinct. T’Qinna squealed something she could barely contain under her breath. Khumi answered in brisk whispers, followed by hushed comments from U’Sumi.
What sort of secret meeting was this? She wondered.
A’Nu-Ahki spoke in a low murmur, just as Tiva pushed through her door onto the mess deck. “…I know I wasn’t dreaming, because the voice waited for me to rise out of bed, and put on my clothes, before giving me the instructions. Oh, hello, Tiva—I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you.”
“‘S’all right. What’s going on?”
“Pahp’s got the order to disembark!” Khumi hissed loud enough to drown out a normal shout.
“Really?” Tiva cried, forgetting some of the others were still asleep.
A’Nu-Ahki made a hand motion for her to lower her voice, and explained in a whisper, “Yes. It happened just a few minutes ago. A soft voice called my name, and told me to dress. After I got up, the Divine Breath said that we were to go out from the ship, and off-load the animals so they can begin to overspread the new world.”
“What are we waiting for?” Tiva asked.
“It’s going to be a big day. I wanted to let everyone sleep…”
A’Nu-Ahki’s wife poked her head out of their cabin door, followed by a groggy Iyapeti and Sutara, who opened up from the next room aft.
A’Nu-Ahki raised his voice to normal, chuckled, and then amended his sentence in mid-stream: “On the other hand, we could get an early start.”
Khumi scrambled for the cargo hatch, followed closely by U’Sumi and T’Qinna. Tiva tied her wrap, and trailed them more slowly. A’Nu-Ahki, Na’Amiha, and the others shuffled behind her.
Tiva’s husband and U’Sumi attacked the sealing clamps with hammers, while T’Qinna brought out some wood spirits from a nearby utility locker. She applied the solvent to the caulked seam around the big hatch. Tiva stood back and watched them.
“We may need to take a battering ram to it,” U’Sumi said. “Remember how the moisture swelled the door just before World-end?”
Khumi slammed the last bolt free, and the giant slab of partly-petrified wood lurched open on its hinges even before T’Qinna finished dissolving the seal. It swung around and banged into the outer hull.
Khumi lowered a ladder, and made to go down it.
“Wait,” U’Sumi said, clasping his brother’s shoulder. “Let Pahp.”
Khumi shrugged, clambered back onto the main deck, and offered the ladder to his father without a word.
Tiva watched A’Nu-Ahki climb down to the soft sediment outside, and leave his print in the soil. He removed his sandals, and let the moist clay work in between wiggling toes. Then he fell to his knees, and again to his face, and wept. Everybody waited around the hatchway, while the Elder’s wails slowly transformed into wild shrieks of laughter. Tiva feared the strain of A’Nu-Ahki’s long centuries had driven him mad, or that perhaps the desolation beyond the grotto was more than he could bear. Is there some big joke on all of us that I’m missing?
Finally, the Old Man rolled over onto his back, his face, beard and mantle covered in reddish-brown soil the same tone as his skin.
He pointed up at them, still laughing, and shouted, “So what are you all standing around gawking at? There’s plenty of dirt for everyone!”
The men all leaped from the hatch, and landed in the clay by their father. T’Qinna followed, with a joyous banshee scream, while Sutara and Na’Amiha took the ladder in a more subdued manner. Tiva followed last, unsure of how she felt.
Songs of thanksgiving broke out in spontaneity long absent during the voyage, especially at worship. Everybody except Tiva and Sutara cavorted around the sediment pack, hands raised, and eyes to the sky.
Then their laughter suddenly stopped. Tiva watched A’Nu-Ahki and the others walk forward along the hull, distracted by some object sticking out from the ship. She followed them until she got close enough to see what.
A gigantic human skeleton hung from one of the starboard waste scuppers, wrapped in the tattered remnants of a Lumekkorim imperial un
iform. Its head and shoulders were still jammed inside the ductwork.
Tiva felt queasy when A’Nu-Ahki chuckled. “Looks like Uggu made it through to New-world with us after all.”
“I’ll get a pole-hook and pull it out,” U’Sumi said. “We’ll bury him in the mud bank near the cliff—can’t have your prophecy go unfulfilled.”
The others, except Sutara, laughed at the irony. Tiva never could get used to the penchant in Khumi’s family for gallows humor. She wondered suddenly if it was because they had so little fear of death that they could laugh at it so easily. The thought only made her feel more isolated.
Tiva stood alone on the berm, and tried to smile.
Sutara dangled her feet in the warm crater pond, and leaned her head against Iyapeti’s shoulder. It was as though the gentle heat of quieting fires deep inside the mountain radiated up through the still water, and into her heart. She felt something pleasant when her husband ran his fingers through her hair. The numbing cold inside did not depart, but it lessened somewhat.
“You haven’t leaned your head on my shoulder since before this world began,” Iyapeti said, probably unaware of how poetic he sounded.
“I’m trying.”
Iyapeti kissed her forehead. “I know. I want to make it easier.”
Sutara smiled for a split second. “You’ve gotten better at that.”
“I can’t tell. I approach you as gently as I know how…”
“Do I resist?”
“No. But you don’t enjoy it like you used to. I’m so sorry.”
Suta slumped onto his lap, and looked up at his tear-filled brown eyes. “You didn’t do anything to deserve that. It was your father—and mine. Satori had many chances, I suppose.”
‘Peti wiped his eyes awkwardly. “I feel so… so bad that I still have mine, when you lost yours. I… I don’t know what to say to comfort you. It’s like there’s this whole part of you missing, and I want to help you find it, but I don’t know how. I don’t want to take from you—even if you don’t resist—if you don’t really love me anymore.”
The Tides of Nemesis (The Windows of Heaven Book 4) Page 31
