The Waters Rising

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Xulai stayed in the shrine with Lok-i-xan. Precious Wind, Justinian, and Abasio went outside with the other Tingawans who introduced themselves as people who had known the princess when she was young. They had come to witness. “Whenever a Xakixa comes, some of us are here to witness,” they said. “So we can be sure the soul has returned.”

  “Tell me about the shrine,” Abasio begged. “That cavern is ancient.”

  An old woman answered. “Oh, yes. It was the first burial place of Clan Do-Lok. Our dead were burned on pyres nearby, and the ashes were put in the cavern along with the name stones. The little lanterns were traditional, only symbolic. Then, long, long ago, the lights began to come. At first, just a few. Then, more and more, some of them very old, back as far as there were name stones. Once we had seen the lights, we realized what was happening here. It has always happened, probably; wherever people have had their own land, their own surroundings for hundreds of years, the souls have remained there, so once we knew, beginning then, as soon as a baby was named, the family made the stone and brought it here. It continues today. If the person dies here, the light comes. If someone dies afar, the Xakixa brings them home. Not the body, that doesn’t matter.”

  “For everyone?”

  A very old man shook his head sadly. “No. Sometimes, young people, you know, they think if something is old, it’s worthless. They don’t love their land or care for it. They go away not only in body, but in spirit, and those who go away like that, they hardly ever come back.” He sighed. “But, at the same time, we know they never were one of us in spirit, so we have lost nothing but the love and care we gave them, and that was their due, stay or not. Some believe their spirits go somewhere else, some other world, but that’s silly. A soul stays where it is at home. If it has no home, it just goes out, like a candle flame. That’s why we must save our world, so the souls of all the people who love the world will have a place to be.”

  Without meaning to say it, Abasio blurted, “And what will you do with the waters rising?”

  The old woman smiled. “This was a mountain with a cave in it; now it is a waterproof building the size of a mountain. Do-Lok will build a tower on top, as high as is needed, if one is needed. The cavern will remain. I have heard talk of building a boat that goes underwater to get to it . . .” She sighed, half smiled. “We’ll think of something.”

  “And the other clans?”

  “Each clan has done this in their own way. On some islands, their shrines drowned, but when divers looked inside, the lights were still there. They’re not fire, you know. They’re the kind of light one sees in the ocean. Now they have divers who carry down the stones of the newborn. Later, if there is a Xakixa, the diver brings up the stone, the Xakixa lays hands upon it, and then the diver takes it down again and there is light in those caverns, under the sea.”

  The other witnesses were smiling, nodding, yes, that was the way of it. Light in the caverns, under the sea. Only a few clans had people who could actually consult with their ancestral spirits, they said, so caverns under the sea were all right for most of them.

  In the shrine, Xulai and Lok-i-xan sat together on a stone bench, hand in hand.

  “Grandfather,” said Xulai, “will you tell me about elegance? You said Tingawans like elegance, even in simple things.”

  “Ah,” he said. “Didn’t Precious Wind ever tell you the story of the emperor’s garden?”

  She shook her head.

  “Long ago there was an emperor. We call him E’loms Los Velipe Umvok, or Elvuk for short. Emperor Elvuk loved gardens. Before he became emperor, he traveled widely, looking at gardens. He collected books about gardens. He collected plants and trees, and when he became emperor, he decided to create the most beautiful gardens in the world. He hired gardeners. Of course, gardeners have their own ideas about things, and this one and that one offered opinions. Elvuk did not want their opinions, so he made them wear blinders and told them they had only to dig where he said to, plant where he said to, fertilize as he said to. People came to look at the gardens, and Elvuk found nutshells and candy wrappers, and so he planted a hedge that grew thirty feet high and where there wasn’t a hedge, he had builders build a wall.

  “His garden grew; it matured; it was beautiful beyond all his dreams. He kept it carefully locked so no one could pick a flower or throw litter. The gardeners weeded in blinders, so they couldn’t see anywhere except where they were weeding. Whenever they trimmed anything, the emperor told them where to cut. The emperor knew it was the most beautiful garden in the world, and the emperor loved it.

  “Came time, as it always does, and the emperor died. Death came for him, and death said, “Tell me what you have accomplished so I can assign you the proper job in the next world.” And the emperor said, “I created the most beautiful garden the world has ever seen.”

  And Death went away to look at his records. And he returned, saying, “I’m sorry, but I find no record of your garden anywhere. No one has seen it. No one has enjoyed it. No one has been benefited by it. If it really existed, you didn’t even leave it behind. If it was behind that tall hedge and wall, there’s only a weed patch there now.”

  The emperor sighed. “Well, assign me to create another.”

  “Sorry,” said Death. “But our garden is already almost perfect, it grows more so with each proper gardener who arrives.”

  “I am one,” said the emperor.

  “Of course, and we do have a proper job for you” said Death. “Here, put these blinders on so you can pull the weeds properly.”

  Xulai thought about this for some time. “The story says that elegance has to be for everyone?”

  “No. The story says that if one creates something very good, it becomes an elegance only when other people can enjoy it. If one keeps it to oneself, it can be a talent, a skill, an amusement, but it can’t be an elegance. No elegant singer sings only to himself. No elegant sculptor puts his work in a dark cave. No elegant baker hides his cakes in a closet. No hoarder can create an elegance; he can only be an Elvuk.”

  “If it has to be very good, then elegance is always expensive, I guess.”

  “Oh, if it’s a thing, the thing itself might be expensive, yes, but even if so, it need not be hoarded. A thing can be very good and cost almost nothing. So, if I have a vase by Um-minchox-di, who was the greatest artist in porcelain the world has seen, I may have acquired it for almost nothing, before he was well known. Or I may have spent a treasury on it. In either case, to become an elegance it must be kept in a place where everyone can see it, where some child who is the next Um-minchox-di can take inspiration from it. If I hide it away, it is as nothing, and, metaphorically speaking, I do not want to wear blinders and pull weeds in among my kinsmen during our afterlife.”

  “You have a vase by Um-minchox-di?”

  “I do. That was his nickname as a child—Um-minchox-di. ‘Small Muddy Boy.’ ”

  “He made things out of mud?”

  “As a toddler, yes. And when he achieved artistry, he took it as his name. I don’t even remember his real one. It says ‘Small Muddy Boy’ on his tablet in the clan shrine.”

  “And how do I translate the emperor’s name, E’loms Los Velipe Umvok? Great one without . . . ?”

  “ ‘Largeness without wisdom number one.’ Just call him Emperor Big Stupid the First.”

  She grinned. “So the tea and the dancers were an elegance even though the people along the road didn’t get to drink tea.”

  “It’s the same tea everyone drinks every day and the same cakes everyone has on holidays. The elegance, the interesting and unusual part, was you and Abasio and your father. That’s what they came to see. And they got to see the parasol dancers. You didn’t see the dancers after we came inside, but they danced all the way down the hill and back to the pier for anyone who cared. A lot of people stayed, just for that. The dancers, too, wished to be an elegance, and so did the people who stayed to watch them.”

  “Precious Wind says the pa
rasols are held over your head by ordinary people. But the dancers aren’t ordinary people.”

  “The dancers are ordinary people who happen to dance exceptionally well. Ordinarily, the people who hold the parasols are picked by lottery; for special occasions, we use people picked for special contributions. You and Abasio and Justinian were a special occasion, so we did an elegance.”

  When they rejoined Abasio and Justinian, Lok-i-xan led them through busy corridors to a ground-level exit and from there to an inlet where a boat waited to take them to meet the Sea King.

  The site of their afternoon meeting was on the far side of a small island out in the harbor, not a great distance from the pier where they had docked. It was unoccupied and it held no evidence it had ever been occupied. Except for the small stretch of sandy beach on the far side and a few twisted trees that had grown up in pockets of blown soil, the island was almost all stone. Chunks of it extended into the sea, great spray-slick brown boulders that hunkered in the gentle surf like the slumped backs of giants asleep in their bath. When the boat and its oarsmen had left them and gone well away from the little island, Lok-i-xan went to the edge of the sand and called: “Xaolat . . . al . . . Koul.”

  “Master of the Sea,” Xulai translated to herself. For a while, nothing happened. Xulai and Abasio exchanged shrugs. When they had begun to think nothing would happen, one of the huge boulders in the surf moved. At several places around it, other, smaller stones appeared, smooth and shining, rising briefly above the water, then sinking again as the monstrous central bulk turned and came toward the beach, where it heaved upward to lie in the shallows. Enormous tentacles coiled and uncoiled; two huge eyes opened. A voice that held its own echo said: “Welcome, Abasio. Welcome, Justinian.”

  “Kraken,” breathed Abasio.

  “Yes,” said Lok-i-xan, taking him and Xulai by their hands as he had done during their walk through the city. “Come.” He led them almost to the edge of the sea. The tip of a tentacle appeared. Lok-i-xan put out his hand, took the tentacle tip, bowed, gestured Abasio forward, and placed it in his hand.

  Abasio was wishing Blue was with him. Blue would have loved this. He shook hands with the kraken and bowed. “I am deeply honored,” he said.

  The great eyes stared at them and through them. A voice full of the liquid flow of the sea said, “Welcome, Abasio. Be one of us.”

  “Xulai,” her grandfather said, beckoning.

  She stood as though stunned. Abasio saw her face, reached for her, tilted her head back. “You’re all right. What’s happening?”

  “I remember him,” she whispered.

  “That’s all right. I remember a lot of very strange stuff, too. Just now, I think you should meet the . . . Sea King.”

  He said, more loudly, over his shoulder, “She remembers you, Sea King.”

  “Ah,” said the kraken. “She has had sea dreams. Come, child. I won’t bite.”

  She stumbled to the sea edge, Abasio’s arm around her, took the proffered tentacle, pressed it between her hands. “You . . . I think you helped me.”

  “It is possible I did, a long time ago.”

  “In which case, I should thank you.”

  “Among kindred, no gratitude is necessary.” The tentacle left her as the great creature shifted its way into slightly deeper water. Lok-i-xan drew them back to dry sand.

  “Now,” the Sea King said, “sit down there where it is warm. Be comfortable.” The enormous, shining bulk lifted a wet tentacle and let the sea water drip over itself. “Lok-i-xan and I have been waiting a long time for this meeting. Lok-i-xan’s grandfather and grandmother and my ancestors waited for this meeting, and several generations before that! For all that time it was planned that when we met, the Sea King would make a speech. Every generation the Sea King practiced the speech! Now, it really happens, in my life! We have rehearsed this over and over, Clan Do-Lok and I, so I will explain all the things that need explaining. Still, no matter how many times we have created it, the speech is not perfect. We are always changing it, for there are always questions. You will be allowed to ask questions.”

  The enormous creature made a sound that, to Abasio, sounded like gentle laughter. It could as well have been the rumblings of a strange stomach or the gurgling of water in a very strange throat, but seemingly Xulai heard it as laughter, also, for she patted the sand beside her to indicate Abasio’s place, then folded her hands in her lap when he sat. He felt uneasy about her. Though she seemed composed, she was dreadfully pale. Lok-i-xan and Justinian took their places to either side. After a short silent moment, the kraken began to speak:

  “Long and long ago, before the time of monsters that you now call the Big Kill, our sea people learned your dryland languages. Not that we have your kind of ears, but any creature who lives in the sea learns to understand vibrations. Whales and dolphins speak in vibrations. A female drylander beside the sea calls to a child, ‘Come out now, it’s getting cold,’ and we begin to understand what that means. We learn of coming out and going in, and swimming and drowning and being eaten by sharks. We learn the words for ‘wrecking’ and ‘sinking.’ Death we already knew about, but we learned your words for it.” The great eyes swiveled sideways, and the voice murmured, “ ‘Death.’ ‘Injury.’ ‘Malice.’ ‘Hatred.’ And better words, as well.

  “Often, in the Before Time, drylander people used to do a thing called ‘taking a cruise.’ They would go from one place to another on a ship, and during the voyage they would learn about places. We could climb up the side of a ship and look through what they called a porthole. The teacher would show them pictures and tell them words. We learned the pictures, we learned the words, both hearing and reading. We learned that this vibration meant this word and this vibration was also conveyed by this set of symbols. So we learned ‘Ancient Greece’ and ‘the glory that was Egypt’ and many such things. Later, we learned ‘DNA’ and ‘genetics’ and ‘mutation.’ We already knew of mutation, for man had put evil things into the sea that had changed some of us in strange ways. Some of the changes we were grateful for. Others we hated you for. It was a difficult time to know what to think about drylander-kind, for those of us sea dwellers who could think.

  “The thinkers were mostly cephalopods, which you called us, and it was an apt name. We were head-footed, for we went where our brains told us to go. The cetaceans were thinkers, too, even though they were former drylanders. We decided to call your people erotopods, sex-footed, for you were always chasing your sex organs. Not all of you. Some of you, too, were cephalopods.

  “We learned ‘war.’ You had many of those. Some of us, the seals and the whales, hoped war would kill you all. Some of us would have regretted that, for we had learned so much from you. That was in what you call the Before Time and the Time When No One Moved Around.

  “During the not-moving time we sea dwellers made our alliance with Clan Do-Lok. Together we learned of the great waters; together we realized dryland people really would die in times to come. You would die, and all the things you had made would fall beneath the waves.” It coiled, the shape conveying grief like a face flowing with tears. Its color changed to one of sadness.

  “Couldn’t we build boats and live on them?” asked Xulai.

  “Oh, Daughter, you have momentarily forgotten. There will be nothing to build boats from. There will be no more trees, no more land. Even the mountaintops will be gone. You have a few hundred years, maybe two hundred or so. You will push higher and higher. There will be very little room, if any, left. Perhaps a few trees may live on the peaks, but not enough to build boats.”

  “So we have no hope,” said Abasio.

  “When there is no hope, one must create hope,” said the Sea King, shrugging all eight of his immense shoulder equivalents. “At first the waters did not rise quickly. The channels were narrow; we had time to create hope! Clan Do-Lok had been working with Sea People for a long time: they had given some of us voices as they had done with horses and dogs; they had given us ways to w
rite things down. When we could speak together, humans apologized for the harm they had done us; we grieved for humans’ fate. We talked of genetics, and Clan Do-Lok began to breed and teach geneticists to create among both our people those who could live in the future.

  “We people of the sea learned greatly from that, different as we are! Through the breeding programs, we created ways to modify ourselves as we wished and have those modifications descend to our children. Some gained voices; some acquired manipulators; some learned to write; we made repositories in the sea where much is written. Together, we and Clan Do-Lok formulated our plan. We have been at it now for several hundred years. Your mother, Xulai, was among the end results of it. Did she give you a sea egg? Before she died, before that spawn of the evil one, that mongapaf, killed her, did she give you a sea egg?”

  Xulai stared. A sea egg?

  Abasio stirred. “Xulai, I was there when you brought it to her. He means the thing she sent you to find! You brought it to her.”

  “I never had a name for it,” she whispered.

  “What did you do with it?” the Sea King asked.

  “I swallowed it,” said Xulai, hovering between horror and curiosity like an atom of iron between two magnets. What was it she had done?

  “Aaaaah,” the Sea King said with a satisfaction that seemed to spread and glitter across the waves like a sunrise. “So! And after that perhaps you understood things you didn’t know you knew. You heard things you couldn’t have heard. You spoke the language of nature, convincing living things that they were other kinds of living things, perhaps.”

  Had she? Oh, Fisher, yes, but the other? She couldn’t remember! “They tell me I did such things. I know somehow I got out of a prison there was no way to get out of. Somehow, the man who took me disappeared completely! I don’t know how it happened.”

  The Sea King made a humming noise, a satisfied noise. “Perhaps you did not need to remember, not then. Nonetheless, you are Precious Hope, the daughter of Xu-i-lok, Precious of the Ancients, for those long-ago people worked on this project for generations. Most of the human genes that went into your lineage were found here, in Tingawa, or on the continent nearby. However, some needed variations were not found here, or were not found among suitable donors.