by Susan Cooper
Westerly looked at him warily for a moment, but said nothing. He put the three bones back in his pack.
They set off, following Peth. His insubstantial stick-like body was hard to see in the dim moonlight, and at first he flickered over the sand so fast that they lost him completely, and had to stop and wait. He came back, making small consoling sounds of apology, and afterwards stayed deliberately close to them, stepping delicately over the sand a few yards ahead. Cally could see flat pad-like feet at the ends of his spidery legs, keeping him from sinking into the sand.
Westerly paused. He was looking up at the sky. “Peth.”
“Yes?”
“Cally and I have been trying to go westward.”
“To the mountains. Yes,” Peth said.
“But you’re taking us south. I can tell by the stars.”
“Have faith,” Peth said. His delicate insect-like body moved ahead again.
“Hum,” said Westerly. He plodded on up the side of a dune, slithering under the weight of his pack.
Cally said softly, over his shoulder, “I like him.”
“You like everybody,” Westerly said wearily.
“I suppose you mean Snake.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Your bone-things glowed for Peth.”
“I’m not arguing,” he said. “I just like to know where I’m going.”
The moon was gone; the sky was beginning to grow light. Gradually the stars disappeared, and a cold greyness was everywhere. Without shadows, the dunes merged into an endless colourless world of dull sand.
Cally said, “The dunes aren’t so high here.”
“It’s just the light,” Westerly said. He walked morosely on, following the high-stepping figure ahead; in the cool dawn Peth looked skeletal, macabre.
After a while he said, “You’re right. They’re changing.”
Above them Peth paused on a ridge of sand, his body outlined spider-like against the brightening sky. They climbed towards him, and as they drew level the first rays of the sun spurted into the sky at their right hand, and before them they saw the end of the dunes, and the beginning of a new desert, vast and intimidating.
There was no sign of life or water or any green thing, anywhere. They saw that they stood in a huge valley, filled with rock and grey scrub, with mountains rising dark and forbidding at either side. The sun rose; their shadows lay long and thin on the last few yards of white sand.
Peth said, “This is why I had to bring you south—to reach the solid land. Across the scrub, you will be able to reach the mountains before the sun dries you into dust—across the sand, you would have had no chance. In all that half of the valley, the White Sea stretches right to the foot of the hills.”
“The White Sea?” Cally said.
“He means the sand,” said Westerly.
“The sand and the salt,” Peth said. “If you had gone north, you would have come out of the dunes into a place still more deadly, a hard white land where the earth is paved with salt. A long time ago this valley was truly a sea, until the Lady Taranis took it. Now the water is gone, and only the salt and the sand are left.”
Westerly said bitterly, “She kills everything.”
“Of course,” Peth said.
He ran down from the dunes to the stony land ahead; small eddies of dust stirred round his moving feet. Then he turned away towards the mountains, and they followed. They were travelling westward again, the sun hot on their backs. Wearily they trudged over the dusty, rock-hard land, through grey scrub and shrivelled plants that looked as if they had never been alive. Sharp stones bruised their feet through the soles of their shoes; dust roughened their dry throats. All at once Cally felt giddy with heat and weakness. Her knees buckled; she crouched on the ground, head down.
Westerly called sharply, “Peth!”
Peth turned. His spidery body glittered now in the sunlight, iridescent, shot through with shifting colours that never became distinct.
“We can’t go on much longer.” Westerly’s voice was hoarse. He looked down in concern at Cally. “Where’s that bottle? You need a drink of water.”
In relief she pulled it out of her bag and took a careful swallow, licking the last drops off her dry lips; then she held out the bottle to Westerly. He shook his head.”
“Come on, West,” she said. Her voice sounded strange in her ears: husky and thin. “Share.”
“Share,” Peth said. “There will be water before nightfall.”
Westerly said bleakly, “That may be too late.” But he swallowed a mouthful of water. There was an inch or two left in the bottle. He corked it again, paused, looked at Peth. Slowly, as if forcing his own hand, he held out the bottle to him.
Peth made a rippling sound like laughter. “Well done. But I do not need it. Thank you.” He turned in a slow semicircle, head up, eye-stalks and antennae stretched out as if searching. “You must travel further. Slowly, easily. But you must come.”
Cally put the bottle back in her pack and stood up, unsteadily. Westerly reached to carry her bag for her, but she pushed his hand gently aside. Then she stiffened, looking out across the huge valley, squinting eastward into the sun. “What’s that?”
“Where?”
She pointed. “There. Something moving.”
Far off, a plume of dust drifted up from the desolate grey land. Westerly stared, his eyes searching round the valley. “There’s another to the south. Look—there—”
Behind them, coming from the further range of hills, the two smoky tufts rose into the air.
“Fire?” said Cally.
“Dust,” Peth said, his soft voice sharper. “The dust of feet, or of wheels. They have found you. Come quickly now, as quick as you can. There is not much time.”
They stumbled after his glittering, flickering shape with panic driving them. The wiry undergrowth caught at their feet; the twigs of small skeleton trees scraped their legs and arms. Westerly’s mind was full of the nightmare images of his pursuers: they’re coming—I always knew they were coming. . . . Cally was trying to force out the memory of her terror-stricken flight from the People, and their crashing implacable progress through the wood. She said, hurrying, gasping, “We stir up dust too—they can see us wherever we go.”
Westerly came close to her; he said, low and anxious, “Maybe it’s a trap—maybe that’s why he led us out of the dunes. Got us out in the open, for them.”
“No!” Cally said. “No!” She looked ahead for Peth, and saw him darting between branches as thin and angular as himself—and then suddenly he was gone.
“West! Where is he?”
Westerly said furiously, “I knew it!” He swung round, staring back across the valley; the approaching plumes of dust were closer now, converging on them, and there was a faint humming sound in the air.
“What can we do?”
“Nothing. Run. Give me your pack.”
But from somewhere near their feet they heard the singing note of Peth’s voice, calling to them.
“Cally! Westerly! Quickly—get down on your hands and knees. And look, and come forward.”
Westerly paused, suspicious, and Cally pulled him down to the ground. He turned on her angrily—but then amongst the thorny, clutching shrubs they could see Peth again. Unfolding his spindly legs, he was climbing out from beneath a shimmering, translucent covering woven between the lowest branches of a low dead bush. Cally saw that at the edges the covering was woven down to the ground too, leaving a space within it like an open-ended box. From above, it had been invisible.
“Inside!” Peth said curtly. “Both of you. And whatever you may see or hear, lie still and silent, and wait.”
They wriggled into the tiny shelter and sat there crouched on the stony ground, in a haze of diffused white light that had in it none of the fierce heat of the sun. Even the blazing sunlight at the entrance seemed to be growing gentler too; peering out, Cally saw Peth’s frail body flickering to and fro there so fast that he was no mor
e than a blur of movement. Like a spider, he was weaving more of the strange shimmering web to cover them and hide them—but weaving far more than was needed just to cover the entrance. To and fro he flashed, back and forth, out on either side beyond the little shelter. He was making an invisible fence: a barrier. But what defence could it possibly be against the attackers rushing on them across the valley?
She reached out a tentative finger to touch the filmy covering round them, remembering the fragility of spiders’ webs. But for the second her finger brushed the tiny filament, the air all around them seemed to fill with a sudden blinding light, and Cally was flung half-stunned against Westerly.
Peth’s voice sang sharply from outside. “Do not touch—do not touch!”
The humming from across the valley was growing louder, more distinct. Westerly had his head up, listening. His eyes searched anxiously for a gap anywhere in the luminous screen around them—and then he saw a slit of brighter light, and leaned eagerly forward, taking care not to touch.
He saw a great cloud of dust over the scrubland, coming close. Dimly inside it he could see two gigantic formless shapes, dark and menacing. Fear washed over him, and he gazed horrified, motionless, as they rushed headlong towards him. They were caught, he and Cally, trapped; in an instant they would be obliterated. There was no escape. He could hear a strange high sound from Peth, a high triumphant singing. He felt the weight of Cally’s inert body against his side, and knew he should help her, yet still he could not take his eyes off the whirling dust outside, the growing, darkening cloud. The deep ominous humming filled the air, the huge pursuing figures loomed over him, so close that he could see their faces now—and he gasped in pure terror, for the faces, staring at him, laughing a dreadful cold laughter, were Cally’s and his own.
He crouched, clenching his fists, waiting for them to break through the tenuous barrier of Peth’s web as they rushed at it. And then, in an instant, they were gone.
Westerly stared. There had been no moment in which he saw them disappear. There was simply silence, nothing, no sign of any pursuit but the long lingering cloud of dust, drifting through the air.
He reached down to Cally. She lay still; her face was dry and hot, and her breathing shallow.
The filmy curtain in front of him split suddenly in two, and Peth was there, outlined monstrous against the sunlit sky, laughing.
Westerly looked at him out of a blur of gratitude for which he could find no words. He said, “What did you do?”
Peth laughed again. “Your shadows are gone. They will not come back. When the nightmare cannot leap a fence, it loses all power. Remember that, Westerly-bound.” His eyestalks bent towards Cally. He said soberly, “She is not well.”
“She needs water.” Westerly’s voice was thick; his tongue felt huge in his mouth. He took the last of the water from Cally’s pack, propped up her head and gently forced the rim of the bottle into her mouth. The water trickled through her lips; in reflex, she swallowed. Her eyes flickered open, and tried to focus. “So . . . hot,” she said.
“Not for long,” Peth said gently. His long questing antennae reached forward and brushed Westerly’s hand and wrist. “Westerly, take Lugan’s guardians from your pack and bring them out here to me.” He backed away, and disappeared outside.
Westerly took out the three white bones. Cally stirred, blinking, whispering. He bent his head to her.
“West—the chasing . . . what—”
“They’ve gone,” he said. “Peth—killed them. You just rest.”
Her eyes closed again.
Peth was standing outside on the dry earth, among broken bushes and tumbleweeds. He made a soft, purring sound of welcome as he saw the three bones. “What did your mother tell you about them?” he said.
“She didn’t tell me much.”
“She would have told you all she knew.”
Westerly’s throat felt empty as he remembered his mother’s face: the smile of pleasure in sharing, the conspiratorial delight in the dancing eyes as she had made him hold the bones, whispering to him. He had thought she was crazy, then.
He said huskily, “She said, keep them always, they are very old and very powerful. If you touch them with your knife, they will talk to you, they will glow for safety and grow cold for danger. They will always be right. Trust them.” He looked up penitently at Peth. “But I didn’t trust you for a while, even though they told me to. I’m sorry, Peth.”
“You are learning,” Peth said mildly. “That is what this journey of yours is for. And now you will learn something your mother did not know. Take the three and plant them in the ground, in a triangle. They must point upwards.”
Westerly did his best to drive the bones into the hard ground. They leaned sideways, and would not stand upright. He collected small stones and built a miniature cairn round each one, propping them so that they pointed to the sky.
“Good,” Peth said. “Now listen well, and always remember. There is a calling you may do, for the sun, or the rain, or the wind. When the guardians are pointed to the sky, you must say the words . . .”
He lifted his head.
“Water and fire and air, by these we live,
By rain and sun and wind.
Oh sky, I am in need.
Send me the rain.”
He paused. “Remember most of all that the need must always be real,” he said. “Now—do you have it?”
Westerly nodded, intent. Taking a deep breath, he said clearly and slowly,
“Water and fire and air, by these we live,
By rain and sun and wind.
Oh sky, I am in need.
Send me the rain.”
Peth said, “Each of us can do more than he knows. It takes only the teaching. Now—watch the sky.”
At first Westerly saw nothing but the hazy blue all around, and the glare of the sun. Then he realised that in the sky over the distant mountains a long low bank of cloud was growing. Slowly it rose and came towards them, grey-white and swirling; soon it filled half the sky, and still it came. It swallowed the sun, and the fierce heat died from the air. High up, racing on a wind he could not feel, the cloudbank swept across the valley to fill the whole sky. As it passed overhead, he felt the first few fat drops of rain.
Westerly whooped with delight, and turned his face upward. “Cally!” he called “Cally!” He dived into the shelter and pulled her out. The rain grew heavier; they reached to it, opened their mouths to it, laughing in relief.
Peth laughed too. “But stay inside,” he said. “Wet clothes will not dry at night. See where the water comes to you.”
He waved his antennae at the strange translucent roof of their shelter, and although they could not see its substance they could see the water gathering in it, and spilling over one slanting edge. Cally set her mouth to the overspill; Westerly went burrowing for cup and flask.
They drank and ate and slept, while the rain pummelled at the roof and Peth stood watch outside. He made no move for shelter, but stood there with his antennae spread as if he were revelling in the rain. Glancing out sleepily, Westerly thought: he’s the colour of rain.
When Peth roused them, the sky was clear and the moon was high, and the travelling began again. They moved far more quickly now over the firm ground, and the mountains began to loom close and dark over the desert.
And when the sun rose, and colour came back into the world, they saw that the rain had worked a transformation. The desert was flowering.
All over the stony ground the leaves of small plants were fat and green, wonderfully restored from the grey tatters that before had lain limp and apparently dead. Each plant was starred with blossoms, white and yellow and red; white-budded sprays had sprung out of flat leafy rosettes scarcely visible before. Small round cactuses each wore a bright pink flower perched above their bristling spines, and in the tall spindly tree-cactuses, yellow and white blossoms hung in echo of the sun and moon. Everywhere, the grey scrubby ground was hazed with a faint mist of green.<
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Peth made a chirruping sound of pleasure and began bending his head close to the larger flowers, uncoiling a delicate proboscis that they had not noticed before, and drinking the nectar. He looked up at them, and waved his antennae at the white buds spraying out above his head. “Those are for you.”
“To eat?” Cally said doubtfully.
Peth chirrupped again, laughing. Westerly reached out tentatively and picked a bud; nibbled, then eagerly pushed it into his mouth and grasped for a handful. “Mmmm,” he said indistinctly.
Cally picked one of the tight-closed white flowers and began dubiously chewing; then her face changed. “Peaches,” she said, reaching for more. “And oranges.”
“And pears and bananas,” said Westerly with relish. “And I think just a hint of celery.”
“Celery?”
“Well, it’s a nice change from dried meat loaf.”
They moved slowly through the scrubland, browsing like contented cattle. Even Peth seemed quite lacking in any sense of urgency now. The sun rose higher, as hot as it had been before and yet no longer threatening.
“Peth,” Westerly said, “what is this place?”
“The Valley of the White Sea,” said the soft singing voice.
“Have you always been here? How do you live?”
“No place is totally dead,” Peth said. “Sooner or later the rains come. One needs only patience.” He bent his head, and uncoiled the long slender tube of his mouth into a flower.
Cally said, “Are there others like you?”
“Not altogether like.” Peth stood still in the sunshine, his skeleton body gleaming; he looked like some great prehistoric insect, the last of a species vanished for thousands of years. He said, “But Lugan’s folk are everywhere. No one of us is like another. Even you two are not like one another.”
“Us?”
“Of course. You are in life—strongly in life, because you are young. So of course you are Lugan’s folk.” His spindly legs tensed, and he turned away. “Come—a little further, and then we must rest. And then travel again.”
Cally tried to keep his attention. “Who is Lugan? Has Taranis killed him?”