CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The skies had changed in the course of the last year or so—not that Rakki had any clear concept of what a year was or why it was important. It was something that White Head kept track of by marking notches in a piece of bone for every day that passed. There were still storms and lightning, and winds that brought cold, sometimes with snow, if they came from the south; rain if from the west; dry, choking dust from the east. But the sky overhead had lightened and seemed higher, breaking up at times into patches of gray cloud and streamers moving against a ceiling that came close to white. In fact, on one or two occasions, even the ceiling had opened briefly to reveal glimpses of a pale, watery blueness that Rakki had heard was supposed to exist up there but had never known whether to believe. Perhaps the flashes he sometime saw in his mind of a dazzling light in the sky shining down over a world of color and life were real after all. And yet, strangely, he was unable to recall any details of that world—of the trees that White Head said had stood high overhead everywhere, or the places filled with people. Sims said that people’s minds protected themselves by shutting out memories that it would be too painful to know could never be experienced again. Generally, the air seemed to be colder, which caused aches in his wounds and in his leg at night.
Even so, the valley was looking greener these days. Slim shoots were appearing in more places, which the Oldworlders said would one day become trees many times the height of a man. When Rakki asked them how long that would take, it turned out—strangely—that none of them really knew.
He took in the view as he and White Head came over the crest of the ridge, riding side by side on what White Head called “mules”; but at the same time he said they weren’t like “real” mules, whatever that meant. Being carried on animals had been widespread in the former times, White Head said—but the animals they had then were larger and faster, but apparently were not the cattle that had existed in herds of thousands. Rakki had thought it strange that they would bother riding animals at all if they also possessed metal birds that they could fly in. But he had long given up trying to make sense of the conflicting and often seemingly contradictory things that Oldworlders said.
It had never occurred to Rakki that animals might be made to carry people. With his crooked leg that no longer bent fully, it was his main way of getting around these days, and his only means of traveling long distances. Sims had found the mules petrified in a canyon after an earthquake and suggested using them, initially as a way of moving Rakki more easily. That had been in the times following Rakki’s rescue, over a year ago now. All he remembered was returning briefly to consciousness as he lay on the rocky ledge where he had fallen, and then nothing more until a long time after that. He knew the story only from the things the others told him.
It was White Head who had first grown suspicious after Rakki’s departure from the caves with Shingral and the others, when he heard Gap Teeth’s account of Zomu’s warning to Rakki. From his own observations, White Head had seen signs of too close a collusion between Zomu and Jemmo to trust Zomu’s story. When he learned of how the result had been to separate Rakki from one of his two staunchest defenders, he became alarmed that this might have been precisely the intention. Convincing Gap Teeth that it was Rakki, not Shell Eyes, who was in danger—and that in any case he, White Head, would watch over her—he had persuaded Gap Teeth to set out after the party in order to aid Rakki and Shingral if they encountered trouble. But before Gap Teeth caught up with them, he had spied Alin and Dorik returning alone and was barely able to conceal himself before they passed. Two miles farther on, as night was falling, he came across Shingral’s body lying on a trail above a high precipice, stabbed from behind. On looking over the edge, he spotted Rakki on a ledge some distance below. He could see no sign of Zomu.
With darkness falling, there was not much Gap Teeth could do but find a way to climb down. Rakki had lost consciousness, but there was little doubt that Gap Teeth’s attentions in tending and binding his wounds, covering him with skins that he carried, and lending his own body warmth through a long night had saved Rakki’s life. Morning found them covered in snow. Rakki was delirious by then, and although he took some sips of water and a few berries, he hadn’t known who Gap Teeth was. Trying to maneuver an injured and inert body back up to the trail single-handedly would have been impossible. So, after making Rakki as comfortable as he could and tying a line looped around a flake of rock to his belt to prevent Rakki from rolling off the ledge, Gap Teeth climbed back up on his own and set off back for the caves.
When Gap Teeth returned, Alin and Dorik were spreading the story that Rakki, Shingral, and Zomu had been caught in a rock fall and swept over a precipice. As of then, Jemmo had made no move to claim Shell Eyes—probably to avoid being too obvious and provoking a reaction from Rakki’s supporters. But Rakki couldn’t be left out there another day. In any case, White Head thought that Jemmo would consolidate his position soon, which meant Gap Teeth would be in danger—and probably White Head too, since Jemmo had never trusted Oldworlders, and White Head’s association with Rakki would count against him. They decided it was time for them to leave the caves.
White Head talked to Sims, and afterward told the others that Sims would be joining them. Gap Teeth approached Uban, a former warrior from the swamps, who had always been loyal to Rakki, and told him the story, intimating that Uban could also be in danger if he stayed. Uban agreed to go with them and in turn recruited another, Neotto, who also felt threatened. Finally, Shell Eyes sensed that something unusual was being planned and accosted White Head, who was frank with her. She had discerned Jemmo’s intentions toward her and said she wanted to be taken along also.
To avoid drawing attention, they left individually at different times through the day, taking various loads with them, including several stripped branches and some lengths of vine for lashing together a litter that Rakki could be carried on. They met some distance from the caves and commenced their journey, traveling almost to the end of the day once again before they reached the place where Rakki had fallen. Gap Teeth went down with Uban and Neotto to bring him back up, after which there was little more they could do than find space beneath a boulder to shelter for the night as best they could.
The next morning, White Head, who had some knowledge of treating injuries, was reluctant to let Rakki be moved; but fear of pursuit and Jemmo’s vengeance left them no choice but to press onward, taking turns to carry the litter with Rakki lashed to it. They trekked for many days through the Broken Lands, changing direction frequently, erasing their tracks, and living off roots, berries, mosses, and occasional birds or sand rats found among the rocks. Rakki’s recollections began again as the party was emerging into a lower region of hills and dunes west of the Broken Lands that none of them had seen before, carved by floods into a maze of canyons and water channels. Scrub and grass began appearing on the landscape, along with the tracks and droppings of larger animals. Soon they began glimpsing ones and twos, sometimes larger groups of them, in the distance. They found scraps of strangely fashioned Oldworld artifacts that not even White Head nor Sims were able to identify, and the bones of huge creatures that the Oldworlders said had lived in areas of water vast enough to submerge all the known land. As Rakki’s leg and side healed, he was able to walk for distances that gradually grew larger as the days went by, though always at a pace that forced the others to slow down. It became apparent that the crookedness in his leg was permanent, and he would never run or move with his previous agility again.
According to White Head, they moved from place to place in the region they named Roundhills for almost half a year. During that time Neotto gashed his chest on a poisonous thornbush and died after being consumed by fever, and Shell Eyes began the swelling that meant she would produce a child. Then they encountered a group of people consisting of several couples, most of them crazy-ones, and a number of children, living under makeshift roofs of branches and leaves built over crevices in the rocks. After two of the males were killed in a short but fierce fight, the others submitted to Rakki’s leadership. Both the dead Neffers possessed females. Rakki gave one of them to Gap Teeth as a reward for saving his life. She was called Hyokoka and had yellow-hued skin with straight hair and curiously slanted eyes of a kind Rakki had never seen before. Uban challenged Sims over who would take the other, whose name was Engressi, but Sims declined to fight and so she became Uban’s. Of the children, two were old enough to fetch, carry, and be given chores. Rakki ordered them to be kept, but not Engressi’s boy baby, who was just able to walk. However, Shell Eyes offered to help Engressi with him and suggested he could be raised to be a special attendant for Rakki. “Another leg for you, to replace the one that is crooked,” she urged. Rakki had laughed at the joke and relented, and the baby was spared.
But he wouldn’t let himself become soft like the Oldworlders, he told himself inwardly. Always, burning at the back of his mind, was the thought of one day exacting revenge on Jemmo. And Alin and Dorik. He sometimes spent long hours visualizing the ways he would watch them die if it ever came within his power to order it.
The location was good, with thick growth around, a creek running down to join a long lake not far below, and although the ground above sloped up to a broken ridge above, it was away from the steep heights that were liable to avalanches of rocks and boulders when the earthquakes came. Rakki decided they would remain there. The people that they had subdued called it Joburg, which they said was the Oldworld name of a place far to the south, now buried under snow according to a lone traveler who had passed through a long time ago. Rakki liked the name and decided they would keep it.
More had joined them in the time since: several couples in a group, again with more children; a number of Neffers traveling in twos and threes, and in one instance, a lone wandering female. All were from the south, where they told of snow and ice covering the land. The clan built more shelters of dried grass thatched onto frames of woven vine, cleared space for growing food plants in the way the Cave People had done, and fenced in an area for keeping the animals they were beginning to acquire. Sims and two of the newcomers made a bowl-shaped frame covered in skins, and floated out on the lake below to find fish.
For the first time that he could remember, Rakki was able to live free from uncertainty and suspicion of everyone around him. Life at Joburg was better than he had known. But still, the thirst for revenge never left him.
He surveyed his domain with pride as he and White Head came down from the ridge side by side astride the mules. Smoke was rising from the hearth outside the open-fronted cooking hut, where a bush-pig was being roasted. The hut for storing a reserve supply of food was nearly complete. A large rock had been levered out of the creek and rolled to one side as part of a plan to clear a portion of it and widen it into a pool for washing and bathing. Rakki felt satisfaction in what they were doing. But he was unsure how long it might last.
“It looks as if they have started working on the creek,” White Head observed. “The path down to it is clearer.” He turned his head and read Rakki’s face. “But you seem troubled.”
“How long will we be able to stay in this place?” Rakki replied. “Everyone talks about a world of snow moving closer from the south. Will Roundhills be covered too?”
“That world is far away from us,” White Head replied. “I don’t think it will reach here.”
“But do you know?”
“No, I do not know. But a man can only guard himself from what is or what he knows will be. To try to guard against every fear of what might be would make him as the crazy-ones.”
“That is good,” Rakki pronounced. “We will make Joburg big and find many warriors. Then one day I will lead them back to the caves. We will settle the thing with Jemmo that was never settled, and Shingral will be avenged. Even if I have to walk the whole way there, I will lead them.”
“Your fever over Jemmo is more relentless than the one that gripped you after we brought you back up from the chasm,” White Head said. “That fever cooled and died with time. This one becomes worse.”
“It is our way,” Rakki told him. “You understood a different world. This world, I understand.”
“There comes a time when what’s past is better left in the past,” White Head said.
Rakki was about to reply, but then directed his attention away when he realized that something unusual was going on around the huts. Gap Teeth and Sims were standing in the clearing in front of the animal pen, both looking up. Hyokoka had come out from the cooking hut, while behind her Engressi was shepherding the children inside. Bakka, one of the newcomers, and his mate, Geel, were in front of the original covered shelter, he looking up, she hanging back under the roof and seeming fearful. More were coming out and calling to others. Rakki frowned and followed their gaze upward. An object unlike anything he’d seen before was hanging in the sky. His jaw tightened as he forced back his fear, at the same time reaching unthinkingly for the edged metal club that he still carried everywhere.
It wasn’t a bird, for although it possessed a body and wings, there was no movement of them, and its motion wasn’t that of a soaring bird that sailed on currents of wind. It seemed larger than any bird he’d seen, but he couldn’t be sure because he had no real way of judging how high up it was. It seemed to be circling slowly around the area where the huts stood, as if studying it. With the wind as he and White Head came over the ridge, Rakki hadn’t heard it before, but now he became aware that it was making a steady droning sound. He leveled a hand over his eyes to shield out the background light of the sky.
It was definitely not a bird. There was no head; its lines were too sharp and rigid. It had a dome like the top of a head, but it was in the middle of the body and hung underneath. Its skin was smooth and gray, lighter on the top side, as if it was reflecting the light… . Rakki’s finger traced unconsciously along the contour of the club he was holding. He looked down at it. Metal. A metal bird? He remembered the strange, distant roaring noises that had been coming intermittently from somewhere to the north for days now; his head jerked around sharply toward White Head as impossible thoughts came into his mind. White Head’s mouth was drawn back, showing his teeth. His face and his eyes were shining ecstatically.
“What is this, old man?” Rakki demanded. “What does it mean?”
White Head had to find breath before he could answer. “It means there are some of them left somewhere,” he answered.
“The gods?”
White Head turned his face back. Rakki had never seen his eyes watery before. “Yes, Rakki. The gods. They’ve come back!”