Six Moon Dance (48 page)

“I said forget it,” Webwings said, launching himself upward. “I’ll tell ‘em you’re on the way.” He spiraled high and then flew back the way he had come, toward the camp.

“What was he talking about?” asked Bane.

“Oh, he probably was talking about some of us, from Thor,” Ashes said, once more in that dreamy, half-hypnotized tone. “Half of us, almost. The way they came out of that pond. They didn’t want to come back to the towns, looking like that. They wanted to stay there. Well. So they stayed.”

“You said they came to the edge of the camp, sometimes?”

“Not the ones that stayed by the pond, no. The ones that come to the camp are more like Crawly than anything. People like Rogger the Rock. And Black Cliff. And Hughy Huge. Back on Thor, they were muscle men, always on the body machines. Big guys, strong as bulls, and that pond made ‘em more so than ever. And they’ve grown since. Oh, I tell you, they’re just mountains of muscle. They don’t talk much anymore, they just roll over everything, like it wasn’t even there. That’s why we built camp where we did, down in that hot pot, so they can’t get down into it and roll over us all.”

“Why?” asked Bane. “Why would they roll over you?”

“Oh, they still get mad, sometimes. When we take the towns, we’ll use ‘em all. Talk ‘em up. Use real short words….”

They sat silent for a long moment. Bane asked, “So. We goin’ on, or what?”

Ashes merely sat, staring at the sky, indecisively musing aloud, as though he had forgotten they were there.

“Web could be right. I did know about Foot’s shoes, back on Thor. I just hadn’t thought of it for a few hundred years. And Tongue, well, he had some dirty habits, too. And it makes me remember when we were in that pond … the thing was … Well, you ever see one of those joke mirrors, the ones that’re all curvy, make you look like you had wobbly legs? In that pond, it was like looking into one of those mirrors. Being outside, looking in. Looking at what I was, moving a little, making this bigger, that smaller, you know how you do. And when I came out, I was what I am now because that’s what I always thought I was. Even the whip, I’d always had one, not a real one, but in my mind. They used to say that about me, old Ash, he can take the skin off. Old Ash, he can turn you raw. Well, I could.” He giggled, very lightly, a strange, quavery sound. “I did. All of us did what was natural to us. You can’t do that, what can you do, huh?”

Dyre started to answer, but Bane caught him, keeping him quiet, letting Ashes talk. He’d already said more than they’d heard him say before, and over the last few days, Bane had decided he needed to know everything there was to know about all this.

Ashes kicked his horse into motion, saying, “But those bastards on Thor, when this one or that one got skinned or tromped on or rolled over, they weren’t man enough to take it or fight it, either one. Had to run to daddy this or uncle that and complain about us. We weren’t
orderly
enough. We used up the women, we didn’t accept the
dis
cipline. Discipline, hah!” He giggled again, that high, quavering giggle. “They had one thing right, though, we did go through the women. It was getting hard to keep ‘em in supply.”

He turned toward his sons, his face alight with malice. “Trouble was, the good ones were stupid and the bad ones were rotten. Like Marool. If they’re bad enough to be interesting, they’re not good enough to use. Not fit to live, right?”

This time Dyre spoke before Bane could stop him. “What did Pete grow into?”

“Pete? Old Petey. He came out of that pond considerably enlarged, and last time I saw him, sitting in the mouth of that cave, he had a piggy as long as old Crawly. He just sat there, looking at it, keeping it from getting sunburned. If it’s grown into the mountain, it must be sizeable by now.” Abruptly, he kneed his horse onto the trail, riding in the direction Webwings had come. “Be good to see old Pete again!”

Behind him, Bane looked at his brother in terrible surmise, fighting down the urge to feel himself to make sure he was still the same size he had been that morning.

“I know one thing,” mumbled Dyre. “I know I don’t want to go near that pond.”

With some difficulty, Bane summoned up his usual jeering manner. “Don’t want a big piggy, huh?”

Dyre moved onto the path, following his father, head hanging. Bane rode up beside him, reaching out to touch him, only to have his hand shaken off.

“Look, we need to decide something,” Bane whispered, reaching across to rein Dyre’s horse, letting some distance grow between them and Ashes’s receding figure. “I don’t like all this much. He’s talking funny. He’s riding west for no reason at all, so far as I can see. And another thing, Webwings …”

“He flew back to camp.”

“Well, he said he was going to, but not long ago, I looked up, and there he was, headed west again. And he said the others were headed this way, too. Like all of them headed off like this, no reason, just going. Like … well, like some of those Old Earth creatures we learned about, going off on migrations, no reason, just going because their insides told them to, maybe right over the cliff into the ocean! I’m getting the idea all this sons of thunder business may not be what we’re really after, you know?”

“How you gonna get away from him?” asked Dyre, nodding at the figure ahead of them. “Him and his whip.”

Bane shrugged. “He keeps drifting off. Maybe we can get him to get shut of us. Just let us go. That Questioner thing came down in a shuttle, and the shuttle’s still there, outside Sendoph. If this world is going to fall apart, like everybody says, I’d just as soon get a ride to someplace else.”

“You can’t fly a shuttle.” Dyre laughed derisively. “You can’t even fly a kite.”

“The shuttle’s got a crew, crotchbrain. Maybe we could get a few of the … the people at the camp to help us. If any of them stayed there. Maybe Mooly. Some of the halfway normal-looking ones. We take the shuttle, and we fly it to the ship, then we take the ship.”

“Yeah, but the way he talks, the way we smell, I mean, what’s the point? If we can’t get any women?”

“We had women,” Bane declared. “Stupid! At House Genevois, we had women. Not as many as pretty boy Mouche, but some. And they didn’t die, either. So Madame knows how to handle the smell bit. All we have to do is grab her and take her somewhere and make her tell us. We can do that before we leave.”

They heard a call, looked up to see that Ashes had stopped and was glaring back at them, beckoning.

“Later,” said Bane, spurring his horse. “You keep your mouth shut. But later … we’ll talk about it some more.”

O
n the ship, the Timmys retreated to an open-sided cabin at the rear of the deck while the Corojum explained the skills of the underground sailor. There were neither compass nor stars. Everything was either black or luminescent, and the only landmarks were the great pillars that loomed, dark and featureless, from the wavering yellow-green sea into the vaulted blue-green sky.

“Except,” said the Corojum, pointing with a huge bony finger, “for the luminous lichen that grows on each face in signs that Kaorugi has set there.”

“It’s like blazing a trail,” Ornery whispered to Mouche. “I read about that, something people used to do in forests, before they had locators. You’d chop a chip out of the tree, leaving a white blaze that you could see on your way back.”

“Except these trees have about a hundred different blazes,” muttered Mouche. This kind of sailing had never entered into his fantasy, among a forest of pillars on luminous water with a steady breeze blowing from behind them. Still, he knew the ropes and the knots, he could feel the sense of the simple rigging.

“Now,” said the Corojum in a pedagogical manner, “you must understand that this journey we are about to make is the journey of Quaggima.”

“Quaggima!” exclaimed the Questioner, turning from her position at the railing. “Quaggima?”

The Corojum quashed her with an imperative gesture. “Please, you must not interrupt, or we will not be in time. This is the story of Quaggima.” His voice soared in a brief phrase, trilling at the end. “That is, ‘Quaggida, stronger one sings.’ Correct? You learned song as young beings.”

“Yes,” murmured Mouche. “Ornery and I, I guess we did. Not just those words, but yes.”

“It is the Timmys’ duty to teach the songs and dances of being to all creatures. For that reason they came to your first ones and all of your people since, no matter how you treated them or killed them or prevented their dancing. Now, at the beginning of the voyage, we sing first line to remind us of the sign, then we look for that sign. Quaggida is winged mouth, or mouth that sings.” He leaned on the railing of the ship and pointed to one of the row of pillars they were approaching. After a moment’s concentration, they could see that it bore a winged and fanged circle.

“See long teeth in circle, for Quaggida has teeth of fire. See bright bar to left? That means we must come so close as this, to see the sign, then turn to just pass it on the left! Quickly, be ready to change sails.”

Obligingly, Mouche and Ornery were ready, and at Corojum’s word, they set the sails to take them just past the left side of the pillar. Mouche, thinking it out, decided that changing sails at a certain distance from the pillar was important, as it set the direction for the next tack, though it was imprecise at best. The Timmys looked up but made no effort to help them. Evidently this voyage was to be tutorial in nature.

“As you learn the way, do not forget the pass sign,” murmured the Corojum. “You must come this close to pillar, read sign, then pass the pillar on the correct side.”

“So the pass sign is on the left, and we pass it on the left,” muttered Ornery, concentrating on the approaching pillar.

They passed it sedately, not with any great speed. The wind was enough to move them, but not enough to speed them through the glowing water.

“Next line,” demanded the Corojum.

“Somewhere among the dimmer galaxies,” said the Questioner, promptly.

“Sign is spiral of galaxy,” said the Corojum, a frown in his voice. “But song must be sung, not spoken.”

“Sorry,” said Questioner. “Just as an item of interest, how do you know galaxies are spiral?”

“Not all are,” answered the Corojum, “but Kaorugi learned that many are. Please, interruptions are very bad idea.”

“Sorry,” she said again, lifting her eyebrows and grinning covertly at herself.

Mouche and Ornery finally saw a cluster of dim dots which, when they came closer yet, became the image of a central disc and several spiraling arms. The pass bar was again to the left.

“Change sail now,” demanded the Corojum, then, as they were passing the pillar on the left, it said imperatively, “Next line.”

This time, as though to forestall the Questioner, the Timmys burst into impassioned song.

“… Doree a Quaggima t’im umdoror/Au, Corojumi, tim d’dom z’na t’tapor—” The song cut off, as though with a knife.

“Which is to say,” asserted the Corojum, “… Luring the weaker-one that strong-one will seize!/Oh, Corojumi, weaker-one comes without awareness….’ Sign is same as Quaggida, but without teeth. Winged circle, for mouth that sings, and beneath, egg shape to show this is weaker or smaller one.”

They seemed to go a very long way before the next pillar came into sight before them, a little to their right.

“Pass bar to the right,” cried Mouche.

“So, go to right,” murmured the Corojum.

Nothing more was said until they had passed the pillar on the right, at which point the Timmys burst into song once more.

“Bofusdiaga! Embai t’im umd’dol/zan’ahsal diza didom….”

Again the Corojum translated. “… Bofusdiaga! From deep dark strong one flings/fiery loops that make a snare….”

“Next sign is a loop,” said the Corojum. “Like a noose.”

They passed pillars that bore other signs, wave forms, squares, triangles, four yellow circles with green dots in the center. “The Eiger,” said the Corojum, pointing this one out to them. “Four eyes, the Eiger, but that is someone else’s voyage.”

Finally, the loop came into view, a sign like a hangman’s noose. As they passed it, the Timmys sang sadly:

“… ersh tim’ elol lai …”

“For weaker one’s bright wings,” said COrojum.

“So the last sign for that verse will be wings again, right?” asked Mouche. “With an egg, to show it’s what you call the weaker one.”

“Correct,” said the Corojum, hugging Mouche’s leg. “You learn quickly.”

“Why am I hungry?” asked Mouche.

“Because it is half a day since we had food,” answered the Corojum. “Next pillar we will stop. Six verses to the song, each at least half a day’s sail, even in the old days, when there were many to set the sails and sing the song, time was the same.”

“How far …” Mouche started to ask.

“Hush,” said Ornery, grinning. “It’s as far as it takes.”

“I merely wondered,” Mouche said between his teeth, “whether we might not be traveling around and around in here, like in a maze, before we get out. How do we know this is the most direct route?”

“Oh, it is not,” cried the Corojum. “No, no. Why would anyone come to sea of Kaorugi to take direct route? Dance voyages are for thinking, for planning, for learning. During voyage, we recalled the reason for dance. Also on this voyage, when there were many Corojumi, we talked of dance, remembering it in all its details. We decided who would dance which part, and who would make singing and music and when it would start. We spoke of moons and their power, and when that power approached at last, we were ready to go down into chasm, where dance must be done.”

They went wordlessly on, until the next pillar was reached, at which point they lowered the sails, and lay rocking slowly to and fro while the Timmys brought them large, shiny leaves spread with an assortment of fruits and breads, traditional, so said the Corojum, to this voyage alone.

The Questioner left the railing, found what looked to be a hatch cover, and sat down upon it.

“Come,” she said to the Corojum. “I have withheld my own questions, we all have. But now, while we have our lunch, surely questions can be asked and answered. The dance must be done, you say, but you are the only one left, and you do not remember the dance.”