The Deep Gods

by David Mason

  Ammi stood with the child at her feet, and looked at the sea. She knew he could not be dead, with the certainty that she had held since the moment she had awakened from her long sleep. Someone was dead, she knew. But it would not be Daniel. It would not be reasonable, she told the child, smiling at the plump fingers that curled around her own.

  So she was not really surprised when he came, staggering through the shallows, to fall on the beach. She ran to him, and fell to her knees beside him, her hands on his back. Eshtak had seen; he shouted aloud, and came, thrusting the blank-eyed naked workmen aside.

  The man on the strand groaned and rolled over, spitting water and coughing. He sat up and opened his eyes.

  “Daniel!” Ammi said and embraced him tightly, sobbing.

  I am not Daniel, he thought. Nor am I Egon. Nor any of the others. I dreamed them. They dreamed me.

  I don’t know who I am, he thought, and looked down at the pale hair of the woman who wept on his shoulder. But… I will be Daniel, from this day…

  … whoever he was.