The Cloud Hunters

by Alex Shearer

  On a brazier on deck lay an ornamental knife with an inlaid handle, its blade resting on the hot embers.

  ‘Friends . . .’ Eldar said again. ‘Our son begins the journey to manhood today. Just as your daughter here –’ he addressed his remarks to Carla ‘– began her journey to become a young woman.’

  There was some serious nodding in affirmation of this.

  ‘Today,’ Eldar continued, ‘is a time to put away the trivial things of childhood and to enter fully into whatever destiny may lie ahead. To join the community and fellowship of hunters – as witnessed here by our friends and neighbours, who honour us with their presence. And in the presence of this invited stranger.’ (That was me.)

  There was more nodding and murmuring from Carla and Kaneesh, who politely denied that they were honouring anyone, but that the honour was all theirs in being asked to attend upon such a momentous and significant event.

  Then Alain leaned back against the mast and turned his face up towards the sky.

  His father reached to the brazier and took up the knife; its sharp, stiletto blade glowed red.

  Alain’s little sister started to cry. Her mother picked her up and held her. The baby was snuffling, asleep in its cradle.

  Alain closed his eyes. His father plunged the dagger into a bowl of water. There was a whoosh and a sizzle of steam.

  ‘Be brave, Alain,’ I heard his mother say. And she looked at Eldar as if to say, ‘And you be careful and don’t make any mistakes.’

  Then he did it.

  He took the knife and brought it up to his son’s face.

  ‘Don’t move,’ he said quietly. ‘Steady now . . .’

  He aimed the tip of the blade at a point high on his son’s left cheekbone, so close to the eye that the incision all but cut through the lower lashes.

  Alain winced, but didn’t cry out. His jaw clenched visibly. His father slowly and precisely moved the knife down along towards his son’s mouth. A streak of red followed the path of the blade as it cut into his face, almost as if the knife were a fine brush, painting a line. But the line rapidly turned ragged, as the spots of red widened into blotches and then into drops which ran and trickled down his face.

  But still he said nothing, not a murmur. His eyes remained shut and his jaw clenched as his father cleaned the tip of the knife by swirling it around in the bowl of water. Then he brought the point up to just under his son’s right eye, and repeated the whole process, carving a second deep and ugly incision into what – even I had to admit – was a fairly handsome face.

  How can you do that? I thought. How can you? To your own son?

  But I understood that for Eldar, the greater crime would have been not to do it, not to initiate his son into this ceremony of manhood. To have left him without scars would have been to ostracise him from his own family, to turn him into an outcast, without identity or tribe.

  Yet all the same it seemed very cruel and brutal to mark your children’s faces, and to subject them to that sharp, unforgiving knife.

  Blood was all over him now. It was as if he were crying blood, as if it were pouring from his eyes in great red tears. It dripped from his face onto his bare torso and ran to the waistband of his clothes.

  ‘It’s done,’ Eldar said. ‘And done well.’

  Alain opened his eyes. He actually smiled.

  His mother brought a cloth to wipe away and staunch the blood, and she held up a bowl which seemed to contain a paste of herbs and aromatics.

  Pleased and proud, Eldar embraced his son. Kaneesh and Carla and Jenine applauded the moment, and I naturally joined in with the general congratulations, if only out of politeness, though in all honesty, I felt a bit sick.

  Carla disappeared for a moment, back to our boat; when she returned she brought a bracelet, in the shape of a coiled snake, which she presented to Eldar’s son. He thanked her and put it around his wrist.

  His own mother, meanwhile, was concocting some kind of poultice. She made Alain sit down on deck, with his head tilted back, and applied the mixture to the two wounds.

  ‘Won’t the scars just close up?’ I asked Jenine.

  ‘The mixture will get inside them,’ she said. ‘It makes them heal faster and it also turns them black.’

  I looked at her facial scars. I had always assumed that they had been done when she had been much younger. But they must have been far more recent than I had supposed. Had they been done when she was an infant, they might have closed up, becoming almost invisible as she had grown.

  She saw me staring.

  ‘You next?’ she said. ‘If you want be a Cloud Hunter?’

  But before I could think of an answer, she had gone over to talk to Alain.

  I felt vaguely envious. I didn’t know why. I didn’t want my face sliced open. But I couldn’t help but think that if I did have a couple of scars like theirs I’d look pretty mean and cool, or at least a bit interesting. My mother would have had a heart attack of course. But you can’t please everybody.

  Alain sat recovering, smiling forbearingly, being congratulated on his new status and praised for his stoicism in achieving it. A second round of green tea was brewed and drunk (or discreetly poured over the side) with the same ceremony as before.

  But once this was finished, it was plain that the ritual was over and that Eldar and his family were as anxious and impatient to be on their way as we were to be on ours.

  The thing had been done; the matter had been witnessed; there would be plenty of time for more elaborate celebrations. But for now there were clouds to harvest and water to sell. Hunters hunted and trackers tracked; it wasn’t in their nature to stand around and make small talk for the sake of it. Cloud Hunters were nomads and wanderers; their inner spirit told them to keep moving and never really to stop for longer than was necessary. It was the travelling, the journey itself, that mattered to them. I don’t think they cared all that much for the destination. That could have been anywhere.

  ‘Well, my friends . . .’

  Kaneesh began on the brief formalities which preceded the farewells. They shook hands, embraced each other, vowed to meet again soon, then wished each other good hunting and good luck.

  There were some private words, probably of congratulation, for Alain from Carla and Kaneesh, and small presents for the baby and the little girl, who one day would both have scars on their pretty, angelic faces too.

  Eldar shook my hand and thanked me for my Witnessing, saying that for an outsider to stand witness to a coming of age was propitious and a good omen.

  Whether that was so, or whether he was just saying it to be polite, or because he liked the sound of it, I didn’t know. But it had a ring of sincerity about it.

  So I responded in kind and told him what a great and rare honour it was for me to be present – which, I suppose, it was – and that I was lucky to be among the fortunate few who had been allowed to stand witness to the coming of age of a Cloud Hunter.

  I appeared to have hit the right note in saying this. Even Kaneesh nodded approvingly, as if to confirm that I had said something apt and sensible at last, and was showing some faint promise of not turning out to be a complete idiot after all. I had opened my mouth, and to my credit, something that made sense had come out.

  Alain came over and shook my hand. The cuts in his face had stopped bleeding, but he looked very odd and sinister, with the now drying lines of mashed herbs tapering down towards his mouth.

  I didn’t feel so badly disposed towards him now that they were leaving. Jenine had been a mite too interested in him for my liking though. It was all right for him with his scars. He had all the advantages, not like me. I had to make my own way in the world.

  I knew that Jenine might move on one day. And that I might never see her again. I knew it and so did she.

  People say that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. But it’s not always so. Sometimes you do know what you have, and just what you stand to lose, and how hard it will be to lose it when the t
ime comes.

  Later that day, as we sat on deck after the meal, Jenine turned to me. ‘You were jealous back then, weren’t you, Christien?’ she said. ‘I saw it in your eyes.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ I said. Then added, ‘Jealous of what?’

  ‘His scars.’

  ‘Maybe –’

  ‘I’m glad you don’t have them,’ she said.

  ‘You are?’

  ‘Yes. Your face is fine as it is.’

  ‘No room for improvement?’

  She laughed. ‘I didn’t say that. There’s always room for improvement.’

  ‘I’ll work on it then,’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You do that.’

  And she seemed to think herself highly amusing. But I didn’t see what was so funny.

  ‘Oh, Christien –’ she said.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing. You don’t need to change. You’re all right just as you are.’

  ‘Ditto,’ I said. ‘You too.’

  ‘Thanks for the compliment,’ she said. Then: ‘That’s quite some charm offensive you’ve got there, isn’t it?’

  But sometimes you don’t really know what to say, do you? Or you know what you want to say, but it doesn’t come out as you intended.

  Life’s a complicated business.

  31

  dissenters

  The Isles of Dissent radiated out from a large, central island, like moons around a planet. The main settlement, the town of Dissent, to which we were headed, contained most of the Dissenters. Here were the minorities and the individualists, all the square pegs who had found only round holes elsewhere. Here were left-handed people, who had fled from the Right Only Isle. Living alongside them were right-handed neighbours, who had abandoned the Left Alone Isle for similar, if diametrically opposite, reasons.

  Why had the left-handed not gone instead to the Left Alone Isle, where they would have been welcomed? And vice versa? The reason was that they wanted to live where difference was tolerated, not in a place where conformity was the law.

  As we came in to dock, I sensed apprehension on the quayside. Men and women stopped working. They shielded their eyes and watched us approach. One man disappeared into a building and returned carrying a crossbow; others appeared with cudgels and clubs. Tolerant the Dissenters may have been, but that didn’t mean they weren’t prepared to defend themselves.

  But once the boat was recognised, and they heard Kaneesh shouting his greetings, they put the weapons away and stood by with mooring ropes so we could tie up to the jetty.

  Once close enough to see their faces, I realised that their skin was dry and their lips were cracked. Notices on the harbour wall warned: WATER IS YOUR LIFE BLOOD – DO NOT WASTE IT.

  So they were more than glad to see us. Even with their own compressors running flat out, they could never extract enough water from the atmosphere to be self-sufficient. The Isles of Dissent just happened to be in a place where cloud rarely formed and rain seldom fell.

  Their vapour compressors were old, too, and always breaking down. The Forbidden Islanders, a short journey away, had storehouses of spare parts. But they wouldn’t trade, not with Dissenters.

  The only ‘heathens’ the Forbidden Islanders would trade with were Cloud Hunters, and that only because they wanted their water and because they would soon be moving on – not moving in next door. It is always easier to get on with people who you know aren’t going to stay.

  Which made me think again about Jenine’s father. There was still something I needed to say to her.

  So, when we disembarked, glad to feel solid ground under our feet again – though it was hard to lose that sensation of being on a boat – I asked her to take a walk with me and to show me the island. We left Kaneesh and Carla to deal with the Dissenters and to pump the water out from the boat and into the waiting transporters on the quay.

  We followed a rocky path from the harbour, leading up to the hills above the town of Dissent. We could view the whole island from here: see the harbour and the ships and the gleaming glass of the greenhouses on the hills, where the Dissenters grew their food.

  ‘Jenine,’ I said, ‘I’ve been thinking.’

  ‘Again? What about this time?’

  ‘Well, a lot of things, really. But about your father – and the Forbidden Isles.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that too,’ she said. ‘I owe you an apology. It wasn’t fair to deceive you as to where we were going.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s all right. I’ll go with you. I want to.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘I just wondered, when we get there, if it’s right that I should merely stay with the boat.’

  She looked at me quizzically.

  ‘Well, if you come on shore with us, you might get hanged. I don’t think your parents would be too pleased.’

  ‘No, but look, the thing is – the three of you, it’s obvious who you are. The moment you set foot on land, if the Quenant see your faces, they’ll know.’

  ‘They won’t see our faces. We’ll cover up.’

  ‘Yes, but me, I’ve got no scars. No one’s going to challenge me. Not as readily. So maybe I should come with you. I won’t have to be hooded. It’ll look all the more natural and less suspicious if at least one of us doesn’t have his head covered and his face hidden.’

  She looked thoughtful.

  ‘And why would you do that for us?’

  ‘I just would. To help you. As friends.’

  ‘We’re Cloud Hunters, Christien,’ she said. ‘The only real friends we’ve ever had were people like ourselves.’

  She started back down the stony track.

  ‘But I am like you,’ I called after her. ‘We’re all like each other, aren’t we?’

  She stopped and turned.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Not really. Your world’s entirely different. You can be anything. You have choices – infinite possibilities. What do I have? A destiny. No choice at all. Can’t you see that?’

  ‘Then why did you let me come along with you, if you didn’t like me? If we’re not friends?’

  She sighed. But she waited for me.

  ‘Christien, I never said I didn’t like you,’ she said. ‘Maybe I like you a bit too much. Maybe that’s what makes it so difficult.’

  But she didn’t walk on until I had caught up with her, and then we returned to the boat together.

  Maybe she was right that Cloud Hunters didn’t have many friends. But then neither did I. So at least we had something in common. But the friends I did have, I valued greatly.

  When we got back to the boat, the last drops of water were trickling into the storage tanks on the dockside. Carla and Kaneesh were involved in deep negotiations with a group of Dissenters. They were haggling in Common Dialect – which, despite its alleged ubiquity throughout the islands as an international business tongue, nobody ever seemed to speak very well.

  I understood enough to know that they were predictably arguing to get the best price for their water. Whatever had been agreed before unloading – and surely something had – was being renegotiated now that the water had been discharged. Kaneesh was threatening to pump all the water back on board. Cloud Hunters and Dissenters have nothing against a good, long, satisfactory haggle when they do business.

  They finally agreed on a figure, shook hands on it, and the money was paid. Some crates of greenhouse-grown fruits and vegetables were then loaded on board, and we were free to sail.

  But the Cloud Hunters didn’t seem in any immediate hurry to leave. So we left the boat unattended – there was no fear of anything being stolen – and walked with some of the Dissenters into town. There we found a cafe and sat down to eat a proper dinner at a decent table – a table that wasn’t moving up and down, and a meal that wasn’t sky-fish. I realised how accustomed I had become to the perpetual motion of a sky-ship, which is always bobbing on the thermals of the air like a cork on water.

&nb
sp; After the meal we strolled around, then made our way back. Kaneesh stopped on the way and went into a shop, to re-emerge with a small bundle and a satisfied smile.

  He unwrapped the bundle when we got to the boat. He had bought himself a new knife. And it wasn’t the kind you cut your bread with, more the sort you’d use for slitting throats and severing ligaments. He tried out its throwing potential and nodded with approval as it embedded itself with a pleasant twang into the mast.

  We rested a while then, lying on deck under a canopy strung up to keep out the sun. I must have slept for over an hour. When I opened my eyes, I was beneath a blanket which someone had thrown over me. The air was cooler and preparations were being made to get underway.

  The quayside was now deserted. The island was asleep. We slipped the ropes free from the capstans and stole quietly away into the equally silent and empty sky.

  The time passed. We entered a bank of cloud. I thought we might stop to turn the compressors on and to fill the tanks, but no, we just gathered up what we could as we kept sailing. I guessed they wanted to keep the boat as light as possible, to be able to get away in any pursuit.

  The dots in the sky ahead of us grew larger, turning from dots to blots to islands. With binoculars you could see their shapes and make out which islands they were from the sky-charts. Here we finally were, at the Forbidden Isles.

  As we drew near, name signs became visible at the harbours. First we passed the Isle of the Chosen. Then, the Isle of the Blessed; the Isle of the Master; the Isle of the Wanted; the Isle of the Select; the Isle of the Righteous; the Isle of the Covered Heads. And so on and on.

  Next to those signs proclaiming an island’s affiliation and allegiance, were other signs, announcing in no uncertain terms who was not to set foot there, except at peril of their lives.

  No Whites, I saw, as our boat drifted by one island. Then, No Blacks at another. No Browns at a third. Then, No Lefts, No Rights, No Drinkers, No Abstainers, No Bare Heads, No Hats and, believe it or not, No Dogs. And at one, I saw: No Cloud Hunters.

  The very rocks of the islands seemed to glare at you with hostility and suspicion as you sailed past, as if the crags had eyes and were on the lookout for anyone with the wrong kind of customs or the wrong beliefs – as if all this could be discerned by the simple act of staring; as if rocks could see into your soul.