Rites of Passage (18 page)

Nohma flung me a withering glance, then turned and hurried after Kenda.

Sickened by my actions, heart thudding in my chest, I set off slowly after them.

~

I
allowed them to put the distance of a terrace between us, not wanting to be anywhere near Kenda and jealous that Nohma had elected to accompany him.

My pace slowed as the day broke at my back. We were climbing towards a pass in the mountain range. I stared around at the desolate landscape, thinking that I could have been far underground and cool, prospecting for water. Ahead, Nohma and Kenda were tiny figures, side by side.

In time they disappeared from sight as they climbed between two jagged walls of rock. I began to feel uneasy, out there all alone. I realised, to my surprise, that I was still clutching the tailbone with which I had hit Kenda. I looked around me and hefted the club: if a giant crab should attack me now, I would be prepared. However, despite my brave resolve I felt far from confident.

I passed between the slabs of rock. My shadow sprawled ahead. The sun had risen, and I was thankful for the protection of my shell. We had only just made the range in time.

I came to the crest of the pass and stared ahead. I saw a steep upward slope which terminated in the escarpment, no more than two or three hours distant. Elation swelled in my chest. I looked around for Nohma and Kenda, but they were nowhere to be seen.

I felt a moment’s panic, and resisted the urge to call their names.

Then, to my relief, I heard Nohma called my name. “Par. Up here.”

I looked up. Nohma was standing on a boulder before the dark entrance of a cavern. She gave a brief wave and retreated into the shadows.

Wearily I climbed over the tumbled rocks, wondering at my reception. By the time I reached the opening, I had decided what I should do.

Kenda sat in the mouth of the cave, sullenly eating his rations. He didn’t look up as I climbed over the boulder and looked down at him. Nohma sat opposite him, her small teeth tearing at a strip of dried crab meat. Her gaze flicked my way, her face expressionless.

Then Kenda looked up, glancing from me to the bone I was still gripping. “Are you planning to hit me again, Par?”

I looked down at the bone, then tossed it aside.

I licked my dry lips and found my voice. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I shouldn’t have hit you. That was wrong.”

He stared at me. I was aware of Nohma’s eyes on me, too. Kenda said, “You should have thought about that before you attacked. Contrition is all very well after the deed.” And so saying he stood, picked up his backpack, and retreated into the darkness of the cave.

I looked at Nohma. “I am sorry, but he shouldn’t have pushed me. You saw him.”

“He should not have pushed you, but you should not have struck him, Par. Your action was the worse. I hope you know that.”

I felt my stomach turn. Of course I knew that. “I’m sorry,” I said.

She stared at me. “No, you’re just sorry for yourself.”

She stood up and, without another glance at me, turned and walked into the shadows of the cave. I watched her go, gripped by impotent fury and self-pity.

I sat in the mouth of the cave and stared out across the slope towards the escarpment, protected from the burning sun by the bulk of the rock at my back. I ate a little dried cactus and drank a few mouthfuls of water, wondering if Nohma had elected to sleep with Kenda. I was too afraid to sneak into the darkness of the cave and find out for sure, and yet not knowing was an exquisite torture.

I retreated a little way into the cave as the temperature climbed, curled up on the hard ground and slept.

~

I
awoke with a start as twilight descended, then memories of yesterday rushed in to fill my empty mind. I recalled attacking Kenda, and Nohma’s reaction. They were back there together, I realised, and felt sick to my stomach at the thought.

I moved to the entrance of the cave and stared out.

I saw movement to my left, the quick darting of a slight, black shape – there and gone in an instant. I stared at where I thought I had seen the movement, but saw nothing. I wondered if I were hallucinating.

I stared ahead again, towards the escarpment – and there it was again, on the periphery of my vision. It was not so much a shape, a figure, as a dark flicker of motion – like the quick flicker of a lizard as it darts into the safety of a crevice. As I stared, something else flicked on the edge of my vision, and then another. I turned my head again and again, but I was never fast enough to catch a full glimpse of whatever was playing games with me.

I was about to retreat into the cave and tell my companions, when I made a far greater discovery.

I wondered why I had not seen it before, then realised that only the strengthening starlight had revealed the object. The length of five terraces from where I sat, on the opposite embankment that rose to the escarpment in a scatter of scree and larger boulders, was a dark, rearing V-shaped object. It was clearly not natural, and I was gripped by excitement at the discovery.

I leapt to my feet and stumbled into the darkness of the cave. I came across the shadowy form of Nohma first, my heart bursting with joy at the fact that she was not curled with Kenda.

“Nohma!” I cried. “Come and see this – quickly!”

She rose and peered at me. “Par?”

“I’ve found something!” I said. “Come and see.”

Kenda emerged from the back of the cave, scratching his armpit. “What have you found, Par? Another giant slug?”

I ignored him, turned and led Nohma to the entrance of the cave. “Look!” I said, pointing.

She stared. “But what is it?”

I shook my head. “Whatever it is, it’s vast. Look, it reaches up halfway to the escarpment.”

“I... I’ve never seen anything so... so...”

She was lost for words, and I supplied, “So regular, so unnatural, so
human-made
.” I excited myself with the phrase.

“But what is it? Why would anyone make such a thing? And from what?”

“It can only be wooden, Nohma,” I said, and glanced at Kenda who had joined us. “What do you think?”

Scratching the area around his scabbed forehead now, as if to remind me of my moment of violence, he looked across the ravine. I could see that he was trying not to be impressed, despite himself.

“Well?” I prompted.

He shrugged. “A trick of the light,” he said. “How come we didn’t see it at sunrise?”

“A trick of the light?” I laughed. “Look at it! It’s there – you can’t deny that!”

Nohma said, “It’s no trick, Kenda. It’s certainly there.”

I turned quickly. I had seen a shape flicker at the extremity of my vision. “What?” Nohma asked.

“You didn’t see it? A... a quick shape, a black flicker.”

Kenda laughed. “You were too long under the sun yesterday, Par. You’re seeing things. There’s
nothing
there.”

I stared at him, then back at the rearing V-shaped thing across the ravine.

“There’s only one way to find out for certain,” I said. “Come, let’s set off and see for ourselves.”

I shouldered my backpack, and then lifted my shell and shrugged it onto my back, arranging the straps for comfort.

Kenda made no move. “Well?” I said.

He stared at me. “I’m not coming,” he said.

I was taken by the sudden, rash urge to hit out at him again – and I was glad I had discarded the bone yesterday. “Not coming?” I said in disbelief.

“I’m turning back. We’ve been out here long enough. It was a fool’s errand, from the start. We’ve almost run out of provisions, and I don’t think we’ll find any out here, do you?”

“You can’t turn back yet.” I gestured hopelessly across the ravine. “What about...?”

He shrugged. “What does it matter, Par? So what if we find some scraps left behind by our people, long ago? So what? What does it matter, what does it
mean
? It can’t feed us, it can’t make the crops grow any better. It’s useless!”

I just stared at him, speechless. I was unable to articulate what it meant to me, what wonder swelled in my chest at the thought of previous generations dwelling in this realm, and constructing great things that we had never even dreamed about; I could not refute his claims, and this angered me.

“But you said that if we could reach the escarpment in less than a day, then we’d continue. And we’d reach it in a matter of hours...”

He smiled at me. “That was before you proved yourself to be a homicidal maniac, Par. I’ve changed my mind. The sensible thing is to turn back now.”

“But I apologised,” I began, impotently.

“I still don’t want to spend any more time with someone who wants me dead.”

“I... I don’t want anything of the kind!” I cried.

He stared at me. “Oh, don’t you?”

And, of course, under the harsh scrutiny of his gaze, I had to look away.

I said, “I’m going. I’m crossing the ravine and investigating the... whatever it might be. And then I’m climbing to the escarpment to see what Old Old Old Marla found there.” I turned and stared at Nohma, and my heartbeat almost deafened me. I took a breath and said, “Nohma, are you coming with me?”

She looked at me, her lips parted as her brain worked. I could not read her expression as conflicting emotions warred behind her huge brown eyes.

To provoke her, one way or the other, I turned and picked my way over the boulders and down into the ravine. I held my breath all the way, not daring to look back. I did not know, then, in my young heart, whether I loved the slight, beautiful girl called Nohma, or hated her.

Long seconds later I heard her call out. “Par! Wait for me. I’m coming!”

Then I did turn and watched as she shrugged on her crab shell and hurried down to meet me, and my heart surged with a combination of victory and love.

Then I saw Kenda move behind her. At first I thought he was preparing himself to leave us, but then I saw – once he had donned his backpack and then his shell – that he too was making his slow way over the boulders to join me. I smiled to myself. I would rather he had retraced his steps and left us, but I knew that his capitulating like this meant that I had won a significant victory.

Nohma joined me, found my hand and squeezed. Under the constant light of the massed stars we made our way across the ravine towards the mysterious, ancient object.

~

O
nly as we climbed, and the great dark wedge became outlined against the starry night sky, did we realise how colossal it was. I refrained from turning to Kenda, who dallied in our wake, and asking if he thought it was an illusion now.

We stopped at the very foot of the great V and stared up in awe. The thing was embedded in the side of the hill, and I could see that the V that presented itself to us was but part of a much greater object. I approached the sheer face that sloped away above us, reached out and pressed a hand against the surface. It was pitted, and was covered in some granular but dusty substance. In the starlight it appeared as red as Old Gren the Waterman’s hair.

I stared up at the V as it broadened towards the stars; it was fully fifty men high, or the height of two terraces laid end to end.

“What is it?” Nohma whispered.

I glanced at Kenda. Despite his earlier scepticism, he was staring with big eyes at the object.

I said, “It is something... something made by our people, long ago, Nohma.”

“Yes, but what can it be? Why did they make such a thing?”

I could only shake my head and admit my ignorance.

I turned quickly as a fleet shape disappeared behind a boulder to my right. Kenda took the opportunity to say, “Seeing things again, Par?”

I ignored him and gestured towards the slope. A gully or natural cutting rose beside the left-most flank of the V, climbing towards the escarpment. The way was strewn with scree of all sizes, from small stones to boulders as big as crabs. The going would not be easy, but that would not prevent my ascent.

I led the way.

As we climbed, from time to time I stopped to inspect the great curving flank of the V. I made out a line of small protuberances, perhaps the size of my fist, positioned at regular intervals across the surface. As we approached the mid-point of the V – with the length of a terrace to the lip of the escarpment high above us – I made out an aperture in the object. From this hole emerged a series of thick oval objects, each one curved around the next in a great interlocking chain, like a necklace Nohma had once woven from winterflowers. This chain dropped vertically from the top of the V and disappeared into the earth at our feet.

“What is it?” Nohma said, shaking her head.

“I know,” I said.

Kenda stared at me. “Listen to him!” he said. “How can you possibly–”

“It’s a ladder,” I said. “Just like the Watermen use to reach the lower caverns.”

Kenda snorted. It was a strange ladder, I’ll admit that – but I could see how someone could climb the chain by inserting his feet in the holes between each link. And to prove the point I slipped my right foot into the first link that emerged from the ground, then my left foot in the one above that.

Then, wanting to impress Nohma, I swarmed up the chain until I was fully ten man-lengths above my companions. I stared down at them, and then waved, holding onto the chain with my free hand.

Nohma seemed tiny, far below me. “Please, Par, come down!”

“There’s nothing to fear,” I said. I craned my neck and made out where the chain curved over the edge of the aperture perhaps forty man-lengths above my head. “Watch!”

I climbed the chain, inserting one foot above the other and pulling myself up, halting only once to stare down at Nohma and Kenda. They were much reduced now, like tiny ants as they stared up at me.

I looked up. Another ten man-lengths and I would reach the aperture. I wondered what I would behold then, as I reached the very summit of the V?

Taking deep breaths, as the ascent had exhausted me, I resumed my climb. Five minutes later I approached the horizontal slit in the flank of the V, then made the last push towards the top and slipped through the slit. I lay on my belly and stared down the other side. A short drop below me was a level surface, manufactured from the same material as the flank of the V, though the jagged edge of the platform suggested that it had suffered some great calamity. I stared past the torn margin of material, but made out only darkness beyond.