Bailus Conley set his feet. He squared his shoulders. He brought the hammer back and then hurled it forward with more strength than he’d ever known he possessed. The hammer never stopped moving, the head passed straight through, the beam buckling like a knee, and eternity came roaring down upon him.
XXIX
Sleeper Cell
Nelly Aldine was having a very bad dream.
She lay on a slab of cold stone. All around her, other people lay on similar slabs, though she could not turn her head to look at them. A tall, thin man stood over her. He wore an awful mask like the head of a vulture. In one hand he held a bowl and with the other he reached into the bowl and sprinkled its contents over Nelly and the other sleepers.
The bird-man was speaking, or at least his mouth was always moving. But Nelly could not hear what he said. She could not hear anything. That was the second worst part of the dream: that there was no sound.
The worst part was that she could not wake up.
She had tried everything a girl could think of. She’d tried screaming. She’d tried pinching herself. She’d tried rolling off the slab onto the floor. This last one was the worst. The first two did nothing (she could not hear the scream nor feel the pinch); but every time she rolled off the table she closed her eyes reflexively just before hitting the floor. When she opened them, she was back on the table. She had tried this a dozen times and it was always the same. It was as if she were only rolling down a huge stair case and each step was another stone slab with its own bird-man to hold her in his spell.
But something was happening to the bird-man. He seemed troubled. He had stopped moving his mouth and kept darting glances over his shoulder. Nelly could not see what he was looking at. She could not see anything but him and her body laid out on the stone table and the other people sleeping beside her (and these she saw only out of the corners of her eyes). Everything else was a white wall, as if they were in a room with no ceiling or floor or corners but just a single circular dome that enclosed them and glowed softly with white light like the glowworms she used to catch with her sister in the caves.
Something was definitely happening. The bird-man had turned fully around so that his back was to Nelly and the others. The feathers or fur (Nelly was not sure what they were) at the base of his neck bristled like the hair of an angry cat and Nelly wondered for the first time whether the vulture-head thing was really a mask.
The bird-man shifted a little to the left, as though he was trying to circle around something, and Nelly could finally see what he was looking at. It was a woman. A woman different from any woman Nelly had ever seen. Her face was dark and her eyes seemed narrow and pointed at the edges. Nelly thought her eyes looked like jewels set in her pretty, mysterious face. It occurred to Nelly this woman was a warrior, though she was not dressed like a warrior and Nelly had never heard of a lady soldier before. A memory of her mother throbbed dully in the back of her mind but remained vague.
The woman and the bird-man circled each other. Nelly tried to sit up and found for the hundredth time she could not. But she could see them well enough looking down the length of her body.
Suddenly, the woman began to laugh. Time and again the creature tried to charge her but was knocked back, as though some invisible force stood in its way. Nelly was so caught up in this strange battle she did not notice the second woman for some time. Once she did notice Her, she could hardly take her eyes from Her. When she tried to describe the Woman later, Nelly said she was golden. But when people asked her about this, Nelly could not remember if it was Her hair or Her skin or Her eyes or Her clothes which were golden. Golden is simply the impression She left on Nelly.
The bird-man began to tremble and then shake and then he fell forward and smashed into a hundred pieces. The women’s hair began to move as though a great wind blew behind them. The pieces of the bird-man began to move to, though not all at once. They blew away like smoke, little by little, until there was nothing left of him.
Nelly did not notice this at the time, but as soon as he was gone she almost instantly began to forget him. Her thoughts and eyes were focused on the two women. But they faded from view, too. The first woman went first. She got hazier and hazier, as though she were walking into a fog, until she disappeared. The second woman looked directly into Nelly’s eyes. “Awake, brave one,” She said. Then She vanished and the light went with Her and Nelly was plunged into darkness.
Nelly did not know how long she had lain there before she realized the darkness was not the darkness of another dream but the darkness of wakefulness. She pinched herself and it hurt and she gave a little shriek of surprise and sat up with a start. But she could not see anything. Wherever she was, it was blacker than the darkest night.
Cautiously, Nelly slid her feet off the table. Sitting on the edge of the slab, she stretched her legs as far as she could, but her feet did not touch anything. She worried the floor was very far below or, even worse, that there was no floor at all. She was reminded of sitting on her bunk bed with her feet dangling down; her father, laying on the bed below beside her little sister and telling them a story, would reach up without warning and tickle the arch of her foot. The memory and the feelings which accompanied it seemed something from another life. But they called to her. She shoved herself forward out into space. Her feet hit sooner than she’d thought they would and she stumbled forward.
She bumped into another stone table. Pushing against it to steady herself, she stood up. As she straightened, she placed a hand on the surface of the slab. Her hand came down on something warm. It was a human hand, far larger and rougher than her own. “Who’s there?” said a man’s voice.
Nelly started back and scurried behind her own table. She had forgotten the other people in the dream. Was this the dream? Was she experiencing now the reality of what she’d been dreaming? The thought frightened her.
All around her, she heard others stirring. Groans, questions, yawns. The slap of boots hitting the stone floor. The pad of bare feet. “Who’s there?” a voice called. The voice repeated its question and Nelly recognized it. Biggs Walker, the cook who pretended not to notice Nelly’s and Chloe’s raids on the fresh baked bread. “Mr. Biggs,” she called. “Mr. Biggs, it’s me, Nelly. I’m over here.”
“Nelly? Bless you child. Hold on, I’m coming.”
Before he reached her, a thought struck her. Did she know the rest of these people? No sooner had that thought struck her when another one did. “Mama,” she called.
No answer.
She began to feel her way around, brushing her hands from table to table. “Mama. Mama.”
Lots of people were shouting names now, but none of the voices were her mothers. The voices echoed, adding to the confusion and allowing Nelly to guess they were in some kind of closed space.
“Mama.” Suddenly Nelly remembered and she called again but her voice broke as she did. “Mama. Oh, Mama.”
“Nelly,” a shrill voice called to her from several tables over.
“Chloe,” Nelly shouted.
The girls called once more and then Nelly had her arms around her little sister.
“Where are we, Nelly?”
“I don’t know, but we have to find a way out.” Nelly took Chloe’s hand and began to feel her way along the tables. She walked in as straight a line she could until her hand met something solid but unlike the tables. It was smooth and extended to the floor and as high as Nelly could reach above and on either side. She guessed she had found the wall of their chamber.
Holding Chloe’s hand in hers, she felt her way along the wall with her free hand until they came to the corner. They moved along the next wall and then the next. At the third corner, Nelly’s foot struck the next wall but her hand did not. Leaning forward, she groped in the darkness. Finally, her hand found the final wall, but it was farther back at that height than it was at the floor. Running her hand along the wall and back down to her foot, she realized she was touching a series of steps. She started up them,
pulling Chloe behind her. The steps led to the ceiling of the chamber, but nothing more. She moved along the top of them until she came back to the first wall. She descended the steps and felt the whole length of the first wall again, but there was nothing there to be found.
Nelly led Chloe back to the stone stairs and they sat down on the first step. Nearby in the darkness, someone was weeping. It sounded like a grown man.
Chloe tucked her head against Nelly and began to cry softly.
Nelly did not know how long they sat there but she did notice the room began to change. Something was wrong. It was horribly hot and hard to breathe. Nelly felt suddenly sleepy. It became harder and harder to keep her eyes open. And finally, whether her eyes were open or not, black spots with gold rims danced before her.
She sat up with a start. She had dozed off but something had roused her. While she was trying to figure out what it was, it came again. A sharp rap from the top of the stairs, but muffled as though it came from outside the chamber. Again and again it sounded. People around her where starting to stir once more. She felt Chloe lift her head from her lap.
The banging noise stopped and was replaced for a moment by silence. Then the silence was replaced by a scraping, crunching noise and the most unbelievable and wonderful thing in the world happened. A crack of light appeared at the top of the stairs.
The grinding noise stopped suddenly. There was a dull clang, and then the grinding noise began again. The crack of light grew. People were getting to their feet now. Some began to shout and cheer. Nelly took Chloe’s hand once more and helped her up.
The grinding noise stopped and Nelly heard something coming out of the light more beautiful than even the light itself. Voices. Human voices.
Behind the human voices swelled a symphony of birdsong.
Suddenly, the line of light was eclipsed. The light broke through only in a few scattered places. There was a terrible roar, the sound people make when they put all their strength into a task, and the motes of light exploded into a blazing window. Then came a crash that shook the steps beneath her feet, and Nelly saw the forms of men and women, black against the ocean of light.
Nelly bounded up the stairs, pulling Chloe with her. There was a confusion of voices but Nelly hardly heard them. Just as she reached the tops of the steps, a figure moved in front of her, cutting her off from the light. Then strong arms were around her, pulling her close, and a wet cheek was pressed against hers and she heard her Auntie Josie say, her voice rising above all the others, “Nelly. Chloe. Oh my god, my god, my babies. Oh, my babies.”
Epilogue:
The Sea of Possibility
They took their time getting to Tira the next day. They caught fish from the deck and roasted them over the coals in the brazier. Molly had her hands full with children. The boy leaned against the bow, staring over the endless two-tone blue of sea and sky with his arms wrapped around himself. Paul, one arm in a sling, the other holding a folded blanket, came up beside him. “How you holding you up, kid?”
The boy gave a little shudder and rubbed his arms. “It’s so cold.”
Paul started, surprised by the sound of his voice. When he’d gotten over his shock at receiving an answer to his question, he shook out the blanket. He draped it over the boy’s shoulders and tucked it under his arms. “We’re heading south now, and we’ll be ashore soon enough. It’ll warm up.” He turned to leave and then paused. “But keep the blanket, anyway. My brother brought a spare.” He walked away laughing.
The boy did not know why, but a smile spread slowly and inexorably across his face. He pulled the blanket tighter about him.
Rawl leaned against the gunwale beside Fletcher Dibsy, one of the 40 they had pulled out of the shrikens’ pit. “Gawd,” Fletch said. “Are you sure I’m not dead? This is all so weird.”
“How could you be dead, Fletch?” Rawl said. “You slept through all the bad stuff.”
“I’m just not sure of anything anymore,” Fletch said. “Maybe your sister can make it all feel real again.”
“I don’t even want to think about that,” Rawl said.
“You think they’re going to have a problem with this?” Leech asked Dane, nodding to the shriken standard on the sail.
Dane shrugged. “Just means we won’t have any trouble finding housing for all our new friends. All the villagers will be running for the hills.”
Mirela leaned against the starboard gunwale, staring off into the west. “What do you think she’s thinking about?” Leech asked.
“Not that hard to guess, is it?” Dane said.
He stepped up beside her, covering her hand with his. “We both know how this will end,” she said.
“There are no fixed paths on the sea,” he said. “It is full of possibility.”
“But we can’t stay at sea forever. Sooner or later we’ll be back on the mainland and you know what that means.”
He looked at her.
She shook her head. “Don’t act like I know the ways of your people better than you do. I’m still Bax’s slave.”
“Bax is dead.”
“But he never sold me to you. When we get home I’ll be parceled out with the rest of his property. I wonder which uncle or cousin I’ll go to.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“You won’t have a choice.”
“I’ll pay anything.”
“I’m sure they’ll be tripping over themselves to sell you his most prized possession, seeing as it was your father who sent him to his death and your leadership he died under.”
He would have kept up the argument but he didn’t have the heart. He knew she was right. And he knew why she looked westward. Even if she were freed, she’d still be hundreds of miles from home.
***
They had the advantage of approaching Tira with the sun behind them, so people on the beach did not look closely at the sail until they had unloaded.
Tomka, the Tiran chieftain, kissed Dane on the cheek, this time with true affection. “Are you a ghost who comes to mock my hopes?”
“I’m too sore to be a ghost,” Dane said.
“You’re not a ghost,” Tomka said. “You’re a god.”
“I don’t feel that good either.”
“A man does not walk into night and then step back out the way he has come. He must pass through to the day which dawns on the other side. If you have been on that island, not once but twice, and come back, you have won a victory beyond hope.”
Dane glanced at Mirela. “Don’t blame me.”
Tomka motioned to the ship. “Where did this come from?”
Dane shrugged. “Spoils of war.”
Tomka slapped his shoulder. “Lord, you make me wish I was young again.”
“If you like it, it’s yours.”
“I can’t accept such a gift. Not from you.”
“Then trade me.”
“What do I have that you would want?”
Dane glanced back at Mirela, saw she was distracted by the children, turned back to Tomka and took him by the arm. “Walk with me.”
***
The Tirans, aided by contributions from the ship’s stores, prepared a feast long before the sun set. There was laughter and even some singing. Dane smiled, listening to Rawl’s and Paul’s caterwauling. He had seen them kill, but his friendship with them felt more complete now that he’d heard their attempts at singing.
Tomka caught his eye and nodded. Dane rose and crossed to the Thatchers. He shook their hands and thanked them. They looked surprised but received his words graciously enough. Dane stood by them for a moment, admiring this barren couple now surrounded by children.
He walked over to where Josie sat with her nieces by the central fire. Dioji lay beside her, receiving the royal treatment; Chloe scratching his stomach and Nelly between his ears.
“I’ll never forgive you for being you,” Dane said. “And I wouldn’t want it any other way.” He nodded to her nieces. “Take care of these kids.” He turne
d to watch Rawl belting out some folk ballad with eyes closed, fist pounding the sand for emphasis. “That one, too.”
He saved Leech for last. “My father will give you whatever you want when you get home,” he said. “You’ll be able to set up your own hospital if that’s your desire.”
“Maybe I’ll just stay here,” Leech said. “I think I’d be happy if I never treated so much as a splinter for the rest of my life.”
“Stay here?”
“These people could use a good doctor.”
“But wouldn’t you get bored?”
Leech looked over his shoulder to where several local young women sat watching him. He turned back to Dane and shrugged. “I’m sure I could find ways to keep busy.”
Dane took his hand. “You’ve been the very best of friends. I wish you the best.”
Leech pulled his hand away and gave a self-conscious glance over his shoulder. “Why are you always so dramatic? It makes me nervous.”
“You’re impossible to say goodbye to.”
“We’re brothers, Dane,” Leech said. “There’s never a need to say goodbye. Besides, you’re so predictable, if I ever miss you I’ll go where you’re headed and get there a week before you.”
Dane headed for Mirela, who sat alone outside the circle of revelers, but Tomka intercepted him. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Dane looked at him. “I’ve been waiting for it all my life without realizing it.”
Tomka took him by the shoulders. “Then, Godspeed. Lord, you make me wish I was young again.” He shook Dane roughly and then released him.
“Thanks for everything.” Dane turned towards Mirela once more.
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