Shadow's End

by Sheri S. Tepper

  When one focused on the shape and not on the streaked and blotched surfaces, the roundness was obvious. Lines and smudges of mineral colors—ocher, brown, red—made them appear more irregular and rugged than they actually were. Except for the horns on top, they were ball-shaped.

  "The mass can't be uniform," Leelson remarked in a troubled tone. "The center of gravity has to be … where?"

  "Doesn't matter," mumbled Trompe. "It'd have to be below the point of the pillar to keep the thing balanced that way. The way they are, the damn things can't exist."

  "But they do," I said.

  "It would work if there were a gyroscope inside." Leelson strode away in a long arc to examine the nearest Nodder from the side. "Or a central support. Or a gravitic drive."

  "Or if they weren't really stone," said Trompe, joining his colleague. The two of them stood there with their mouths open, wearing identical expressions of annoyance. Fastigats, so I had already learned, do not like things they do not understand. Their irritated silence made me uncomfortably aware that I understood no more than they.

  Lutha had regained control of herself. "You're not thinking that they're unnatural, are you?"

  Leelson took his time before answering. "You've seen Dinadhi children playing ball games. You've seen Dinadhi herdsmen spinning wool. Imagine yourself trying to balance one of the balls on the tip of a spindle and tell me how much luck you'd have."

  She gave me a quick look, and I shook my head. As described, it would be impossible. Unless the ball were spinning. We have jugglers skilled in such tricks, but these heads weren't spinning. So. It couldn't be done.

  The two men came strolling back, foreheads wrinkled with concentration.

  I said, "But if they aren't natural, wouldn't someone have noticed before now?"

  Leelson shook his head. "According to you, Saluez, people come this way only once every sixty Dinadhi years, which is about once a century, standard. Since that's a generous lifetime, it's unlikely anyone makes the trip twice. Suppose a traveler had noticed. Suppose he'd gone back to his hive and told someone. Would there have been any consequence?"

  His superior tone implied there would have been none, and he was probably right. On Dinadh, whenever someone raises a "difficult" question, someone else can be depended upon to mutter, in that particular tone of hushed apprehension people always use on such occasions, "Perhaps it's part of the choice." Once the choice is mentioned, all conversation ends. Only songfathers are allowed to discuss the choice, along with the rest of their arcane lore.

  I suppose my thoughts showed on my face, for Leelson said:

  "As I thought. No one would have done anything at all about it." Then he shared one of his infuriatingly smug looks with Trompe.

  Lutha glanced at me from beneath her lashes, and I blinked slowly in sympathy. We were both thinking that Fastigats were impossible. She took my hand and we walked back to the wagon behind the men. I was wondering if our being here was blasphemous, but Lutha had a different concern.

  "From here, they look like a herd of great horned beasts, don't they? If they're artificial, why are they here?"

  Leelson stood for a moment in thought, then fetched Bernesohn Famber's map from the wagon, unrolled it on the ground, and put a stone on each corner to hold it down. Kneeling beside it, he pointed with an extended forefinger.

  "The important geographical features are all shown on this map, canyons, tablelands, hives, and so forth—even the omphalos, beside this winding river on what seems to be a flat plain. The Nodders, however, are not shown."

  "That is, they're not printed on the map," said Trompe, underlining the obvious.

  Leelson continued. "No. The word Nodders has been written in, probably by Bernesohn himself. He learned about them a century ago. Either someone told him about the Nodders or he himself came this way."

  I said, "But Bernesohn Famber wouldn't have been allowed to go to the omphalos. He was an outlander."

  "We're not allowed either, but we're going," Trompe snorted. "What would they have done to him if they'd caught him?"

  It was not a proper question. It was not a question any Dinadhi should have to answer. "I don't know," I said. "Sometimes the songfathers have people stoned."

  Leelson sat back on his heels. "Let's assume he came here himself. Let's even assume he was put to death by the songfathers for that impropriety. Would his property have been forfeit?"

  I didn't know what he meant, but Lutha did. She turned to me, asking:

  "If a person is executed on Dinadh, what happens to his property. What happens to his clothing, or anything he may be carrying?"

  "Everything we have belongs to our families. When someone dies, if the body isn't too close to a hive, it's just left where it is. It's only … flesh. The spirit is already gone. But anything like clothing or tools would be returned to the family."

  "Even if the person has been executed?"

  "The family is not tarnished for what one person of it does. That would not be just."

  Songfather was not tarnished because of me. Chahdzi father was not tarnished because his daughter had failed. It would not be just. I felt my throat tighten, all my sinews strain. Was it just that I had been tarnished? What had I done to deserve tarnishing?

  Lutha put her hand on my shoulder, but Leelson did not notice my pain. He was focused elsewhere.

  "So if Bernesohn was killed out here somewhere, the map would have been returned to his leasehold."

  I brought my mind back to where we were.

  "The map?" Leelson demanded impatiently. "It would have been brought back?"

  He made me angry with his insistence. "Yes, but the same would be true if he had been found dead. He didn't have to have been executed. In fact, we know he wasn't, because if he had been, no one would have—" I caught my breath and put my hand over my mouth.

  I'd been going to say, "No one would have prayed his return if he'd been guilty of blasphemy." Since he came back to Cochim-Mahn as a Kachis, he must have been invited. This is one reason our people are careful to be pleasant to one another, not to be hostile, not to be mean, for if one of us is not well liked, that one may not be invited to return, may not be invited to be part of his former family.

  I turned away in confusion.

  "What?" demanded Leelson.

  Lutha squeezed my hand, saying, "It's one of the things she's not supposed to talk about, Leelson. Simply take it as given that she has reason to believe Bernesohn Famber was not killed by the songfathers."

  Leelson glared at her and at me, shaking his head. "It really doesn't matter whether he vanished during his journey or subsequently. In either case the map ended up back at his leasehold with his handwritten notes on it. It's unfortunate he's no longer among us to enlighten us as to the details."

  I opened my mouth, then shut it without saying that Bernesohn Famber was still among us. Lutha hadn't believed it. Leelson wouldn't believe it either.

  Leelson went on, "Let's assume the songfathers know the way to the omphalos because they've inherited instructions from former generations, not because they've made the trip before."

  Lutha asked, "Where are you going with all this, Leelson?"

  "I'm getting there. The map shows a dozen canyon mouths opening into the area of the omphalos, and assuming the Nodders did not grow here but were put here, we could extrapolate that there may be similar installations at the mouths of all the canyons. In which case, what purpose do they serve?"

  "I haven't the least idea," she replied in a grumpy voice. "Do you? Or are you just being rhetorical."

  "He's not being rhetorical," Trompe offered. "He's saying there may be Nodders guarding all access to the omphalos. Controlling traffic, so to speak."

  "Traffic!" She stared pointedly at the emptiness around us. Stone and more stone. No traffic.

  Trompe persisted. "If he's right, timely travelers get through, others don't."

  I said, "It is true that songfathers may not go to the omphalos except at t
he time of Tahs-uppi."

  "What about leap year?" asked Lutha in a contentious tone. "I thought an extra day had to be drawn from the navel hole every few years!"

  "Only the big days must be pulled by songfathers," I told them. "The little days are pulled out by the spirit people who live there, at the sipapu."

  "Monks?" Lutha puzzled in aglais. "Priests?"

  I knew those words. "Women too."

  "Nuns?"

  I shrugged. "Spirit people is what the songfathers call them. Spirit men, with spirit women to take care of them." In the sisterhood it was said the spirit people had no House Without a Name. It was said the spirit women never got pregnant. No one had ever told me how they managed that. I thought perhaps they were all very holy. Or very old. I would ask Lutha about it later.

  Trompe rolled up the map and put it back in the wagon. "How do the Nodders decide to let people through? By the season of the year? By counting planetary revolutions since the previous visitors? By genetic pattern? Or are they controlled from somewhere?"

  "We're going to have to find out," Leelson said. "One of us will have to try it. You or me, Trompe."

  "I can go," I offered. Perhaps this is why I had come, to spend my life, and my child's, for something important. "I want to."

  "Your going wouldn't tell us what we want to know," Trompe said kindly, patting my shoulder. "They could let you through, then come down on us. We need to know if non-Dinadhi can get through. Assuming the time is right, of course."

  "But that's not all you're assuming!" cried Lutha incredulously. "You're assuming they're artificial, you're assuming they're a danger, you're building this whole scenario out of thin air."

  "Thin air! Look at the damn things," Leelson snarled at her. "For the love of heaven, Lutha! Stop living in your gut and start living in your head!"

  She went pale with anger as she spoke between gritted teeth. "I'm as thoughtful as you are, Leelson Famber. And as intelligent! It's just that I don't go building elaborate theoretical structures on damned little evidence."

  "Really! That hasn't been my observation up until now," he said, with an obvious sidelong look at Leely.

  "That's unfair," she cried, storming away from us to stand at some distance, back turned, rigid.

  He strode after her. "Lutha, damn it, use good sense!"

  "You're talking about Leely."

  "Forget Leely!"

  "I can't. He's alive! His heart beats. His lungs pump air—"

  "Frogs' hearts beat," he shouted. "Sparrows have lungs that pump air. Is that your criteria for humanity? Hearts and lungs?"

  "He has brain waves!" she shouted.

  "He has the same kind of brain waves as chickens. As a matter of fact, his brain waves are virtually indistinguishable from those of chickens."

  "He's not a chicken. He's a human being!"

  Leelson's face was very pale, his mouth was hard. "Morphologically, he's a human being. Mentally, he's a chicken."

  He came striding back, saying something to Trompe in an angry tone, words I couldn't catch. Trompe soothed him.

  "Give her room, Leelson. She's not here because she wants to be."

  "She stayed when she had a chance to leave! I wanted her home, safe, out of this!"

  "It's no good arguing that point now. She's here. Leely is here. You're here, and so am I, and Saluez. We've got people, animals, and a wagon to get through those … whatever they are. You're not going to get Lutha to think logically about Leely, so let's forget that and concentrate on what we have to do!"

  Leelson heaved a deep breath. "You or me, then. We'll draw for it; short straw goes, on foot. Then we'll know if nonplanetary human males can get through. Saluez can come next, to establish whether women are allowed."

  Even angry as he was at Lutha, to protect her he would sacrifice himself. And me. But then, I was used to that.

  "Then Lutha and … Leely. Then the other one of us, driving the wagon."

  "Not driving," amended Trompe. "Leading on a long, long rope. That way, if they don't like wagons, or gaufers, the one leading will still have a chance."

  They nodded at one another, agreeing. I thought we wouldn't have any chance unless the Nodders let the gaufers and the wagon through. But then, before we left Cochim-Mahn, I was fairly sure we'd be eaten the first night or so. And before I first met Leelson, I thought outlanders would be strange and exotic instead of just ordinary people. And at one time I'd thought the Kachis were invulnerable and all-seeing, but some of them had died and thousands of others had sat like stones around the Burning Springs. And at one time I'd thought Leely was helpless, but he wasn't. He sneaked around like a clever little corn-rat. Leelson was wrong about him. He was smarter than a chicken. Of course, I'd never seen a chicken.

  Just because Leelson might be wrong didn't mean Lutha was right about him, though she was about some things. She was probably right about the Kachis we'd seen at Burning Springs. If the songfathers couldn't get to the omphalos, the omphalos wouldn't be opened. If the omphalos wasn't opened, the Kachis couldn't go through it to heaven. It made sense that all the Kachis would find nice warm places and meditate there, awaiting their time of transfiguration.

  While I was puzzling over this Leelson had wandered off to the edge of the small stream that we had traveled along since we had left the Burning Springs. He plucked a few lengths of dried grass and came striding back to Trompe, holding out a fist with two straws protruding. Trompe drew one.

  Leelson opened his hand to show that the one he retained was the shorter one, and then, without so much as blinking or saying goodbye, he turned and walked rapidly toward the Nodders, leaving Trompe and me with our mouths full of unspoken advice. Leely poked his head out of the wagon and stared at Leelson's retreating back. Only Lutha, still angrily facing back the way we had come, did not see him go.

  When he came beneath the first of the Nodders, I forgot to breathe. The Nodder began to sway again, very gently, side to side, like someone saying no, no, don't do that. Leelson looked up, hesitated only a fraction of an instant, then went on. The Nodder went on swaying: no, no, no, and it didn't stop swaying when Leelson went past it, out of its shadow, and strode toward the gap between the two other outliers. Both of them began to sway also, saying no, no, no. This time Leelson didn't look up. He just went on, arms swinging, eyes on his feet.

  The great heads were horning the heavens, right, left, right. Lutha had been right. They resembled a herd of … what? "They look like animal heads," I whispered. "What is that Old-earthian animal, Trompe? Men fought it ritually, risking their lives. Was it a cattle?"

  "Bull," he said.

  Of course. Bull. Virile and puissant. Mighty bull. I remembered now.

  From behind me I heard an indrawn breath. Lutha came running. Trompe caught her as she was about to pass us.

  "Hush," he said as she began to babble. "Don't do anything to foul up the findings. Or to risk his life more than it already is."

  She paused, frozen, one foot still raised, watching as intently as we. A few moments before, she had hated him. A few hours before, when we had stopped to rest, I had seen her in his arms again, the two of them holding one another as though they would never let go. It would be nice, I thought wistfully, if they could sort it out. Whenever I saw them at it, loving or hating, it was hurtful to me.

  Leelson went between the sentinel pair, then into a veritable forest of pillars. The great horned heads bobbed restlessly above him, moved by something. Not wind. It was, for the moment, utterly calm and very cold.

  When Leelson moved out of sight among the stones, we all looked upward, readying ourselves, I suppose, for one or more of the great heads to fall. Nothing happened but that slight motion, that measured horning. Jab, jab, jab, they said. No, no, no.

  Trompe murmured, "We can postulate it's the correct time to get through, but only just. The traffic controllers seem to be in some doubt."

  That was one explanation. I could think of others, but to no profit. No amount
of thinking would tell us what we needed to know; only action would do. I took a deep breath and trudged off in the direction Leelson had gone, hoping the path would be self-evident. One route through might be passable, while another might be forbidden! The two Fastigats had not considered that! Behind me Lutha said something and Trompe hushed her. I heard Leely burbling his eternal Dananana. Then I heard nothing but my own blood roaring in my ears.

  The temptation to look up was too strong when I came beneath the first one. I staggered at the sight. So huge. So horrid. So heavy. The tops of our caves are as huge, as heavy, but they curve comfortingly down around us, like sheltering arms. These curves went away, the wrong way, and it was like looking up at the shape of some flying monster, diving on me. I shuddered, forced my eyes down, and kept walking. Everywhere the ground was littered with shards of broken stone, sharp edges, curved surfaces, like fragments of eggshells made gigantic. They had fallen from somewhere. At one time or another, they had fallen.

  I kept my feet moving, one foot in front of the other. My mouth and throat were so dry it hurt to move my tongue. I gulped at the sight of bones. Not human. Gaufer bones. A scatter of them, as though something had been eating them. Then, as I moved around a great pillar, there were human ones: shoulders and a skull staring at the sky, arms and torso disappearing under a broken-edged stone.

  The rock was curved like a fragment of cup and it rocked as I passed. Curve inside curve. Were the Nodders hollow? Were they great stone eggs? With what inside? Were these the remnants of some that had hatched?

  Beware, the skull eyes said to me. Beware. Don't panic. Don't shout. Don't run. Beware!

  I had passed between the Nodder pair. Off to my left the streamlet ran, winding among the pillars, which were all around me now, a thick copse of rising trunks with a multitude of paths among them. How did one keep from getting lost? The stony soil showed no trace of Leelson's passage.

  Look up, I told myself. Look past the threatening heads to the canyon rim. Even these monsters are not so high as that lofty edge. Look where the sun is, and where it comes across the heads to make scallop-backed scythes of gray-golden light upon the rocky soil. The rays come from the left. The scythe crescents open to the left. Keep them lying so as you go.