The poor thing visibly wilted under the head of Elemak’s fierce glare, but it stood its ground. Elemak reached out a foot and ground the stalks of grain into the muddy grass. “I don’t care about the grain,” he said. Then he reached down and snatched the creature up by one arm. “Where’s my daughter!” he bellowed.
“What language do you expect him to answer in?” said Padarok scornfully. “Or should he draw you a map in midair?”
Please, don’t goad him, don’t provoke him, Rokya; Zdorab thought the words but didn’t say them. Because he was also proud. He had spent his life bowing to men like this, so they wouldn’t hurt him. But his son did not bow. He might have inherited my height, thought Zdorab, but he has his mother’s spine.
Elemak’s answer was to roar in rage, and as he did, he snapped the creature like a whip. Zdorab saw, to his horror, that in Elemak’s grip the poor thing was like a brittle stick. He could see its arm break on both sides of Elemak’s grip, and at the same time both wings tore and began to bleed, while every joint seemed to have bent the wrong way and now could not get back. The creature screamed once and then fell silent, hanging limp and broken in Elemak’s hands.
“My my my,” said Meb. “Fellow doesn’t know his own strength sometimes.”
“Good work,” said Padarok. “Now that he’s dead, he’ll make a great guide.”
Elemak hurled the broken animal away from him. It struck the trunk of a tree and stuck there for a moment, then dropped lifelessly to the ground. “Where is my daughter!” Elemak shouted. “They’ve taken my daughter!”
His rage was so terrible that they all backed away from him, just a step, but it made their fear plain. Except Padarok. He didn’t back away.
And that meant that he would be the one to bear the brunt of Elemak’s helpless fury. Already Elemak was glaring at him.
So, again without thinking, Zdorab stepped forward. “We’re going back down now, Elemak. We all tried. But there’s no way we can find her, if she’s up here. If breaking and killing a helpless little creature will make you feel better, then you’ve done it. You don’t have to kill or break anything else.”
He could see Elemak visibly pull himself back under control.
“I’ll never forgive you for saying that,” Elemak said.
“There’s not a soul here that you haven’t promised, one time or another, never to forgive,” said Zdorab. “But we forgive you, Elemak. We all have children. It could have been any one of us. If we could bring her back to you, we would.”
“If you could bring her back to me,” said Elemak, “I would be your willing servant forever.” Then he stalked off, over the saddle, and down into the canyon.
Obring and Meb followed him immediately, but both paused as they passed Zdorab. “Who would have thought the little pizdoon had some spunk in him after all,” Obring said, laughing derisively.
“You keep this up,” said Meb, “and someday, who knows? You might actually get a hard-on. Then you’ll be half a man.” He patted Zdorab on the head and followed Obring and Elemak down.
Padarok came to Zdorab and hugged him. “Thank you, Father. I thought he was going to break my neck.”
“We saw what he wanted to do to you, Rokya,” said Zdorab, “because he did it to the angel.”
Then, from down by the tree where Elemak had flung the poor creature, Yasai called out. “He’s not dead!”
“Then maybe we should kill it to put it out of its misery,” suggested Zhatva, Nafai’s eldest son. They all gathered around the creature.
“This isn’t a dog,” said Yasai. “Oykib said he was sentient. A person, not a beast. Shedemei will be able to heal him if it can be done at all.”
The creature kept slowly blinking one eye.
“Are you sure that’s not a reflex?” asked Xodhya.
Yasai was peeling off his shirt. “Help me lift him onto this,” he said. “Without breaking his neck.”
“It’s already broken,” said Motiga helpfully.
“But maybe the spinal column isn’t severed.” Then Yasai whistled in surprise. “He’s so light.”
“It hurts him,” said Vas. “He’s closing his eyes in pain.”
“But not complaining,” said Zdorab. “He bears his suffering well.”
“Yeah, a real man,” said Zhatva. But there was little mockery in his voice. The creature was to be admired.
“What if Elemak sees that we’re carrying him?” asked Motya.
“I hope he does,” said Padarok. “This creature wasn’t threatening him in any way, and look what he did. Even if it had been a dog….”
He didn’t have to finish his sentence. Four of them took up the four corners of the shirt. The others carried their lanterns, and they began the slow journey down the canyon.
Eiadh heard the glad shouting of the children and knew that Elemak and the men who were with him had finally come back down from their night’s search. No doubt Elya would be exhausted and a bit frustrated that his search was in vain. But when he saw Zhivya, that would make up for everything.
Zhivya, perhaps worn out from yesterday’s excitement, was taking a late morning nap. Eiadh picked her up carefully; the baby stirred but did not wake. Eiadh’s one worry now was that she might remember something from the experience. She was old enough to toddle around now, but surely not old enough for memories to linger. There should be no nightmares of diggers looming over her crib or of journeys through long dark tunnels. There was nothing to worry about now.
Zhivya woke up as Eiadh carried her along toward the village’s edge. There was Elemak, tall and strong—for all his flaws, a fine man, a powerful figure. Eiadh remembered again why she had fallen in love with him, back when she was a foolish shallow girl in Basilica. True, he had proven not to have the self-control and the selflessness that she admired in some of the other men, and his temper meant that she and the children had to tread carefully at home. But he was her husband, and she wasn’t unhappy about that. Not today, not with their daughter rescued from the monsters of the underground.
As she approached, she could see that Volemak was telling him what had happened; as they spoke, Volemak cast his gaze toward her, and Elemak looked also, seeing that she had the baby. Elemak smiled at her. It could have been a bit more enthusiastic, but he was tired.
Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. Yasai, Rokya, Xodhya, and Zhyat were carrying something in a shirt—Yasai’s, no doubt, since he was barechested. Volemak directed them toward the ship, where Shedemei was studying the digger hostages. What was it? They hadn’t harmed one of the angels, had they?
As soon as she thought of it, she knew it was true. Volemak was remonstrating with Elemak, and now Eiadh was near enough and their voices were loud enough for her to hear.
“But he was unarmed?” Volemak was saying. “He didn’t threaten you at all?”
“I told you that I thought he knew where my daughter was!”
“So you crippled him? Even if you didn’t care that we have to live in this place and you have needlessly made enemies of a tribe of sentient creatures, you might have thought that brutalizing the one person who might have helped you was beyond stupidity!”
Volemak was too angry, Eiadh thought. Elemak didn’t respond well to tongue-lashings, especially in public. He had been faithful to the oath of obedience, but why push it?
Of course, she hadn’t seen the injured angel, and Volemak had. What had Elemak done?
“Oh, yes, I’m beyond stupid,” Elemak was answering. “But your perfect hero with the magic cloak was down playing god with a bunch of rats!”
“He got your daughter back, he and Oykib and Protchnu and I,” said Volemak. “And we did it surrounded by armed diggers that outnumbered us by hundreds, because you had insisted on taking all but a handful of our men of fighting age.”
“If you had commanded me to leave some behind,” Elemak began, but Volemak cut him off.
“Oh, yes, you would have obeyed—while you accused me of wanting your
daughter to die. Well, Elya, she lived, no thanks to you. Now let’s see if that harmless angel is as lucky.”
“What am I supposed to do, kneel down and worship at Nafai’s feet? Is he supposed to be my god, too?”
That was too much for Eiadh. “You might thank him,” said Eiadh quietly. “He gave us back Zhivya.”
“No he didn’t,” said Elemak. “The cloak of the starmaster did whatever was done. If I had had the cloak, I could have done at least as well.”
“No you wouldn’t,” said Eiadh. “Because you would have been up the canyon with the cloak, no doubt using it to shoot angels out of the sky, and down here without it we would have been overrun and slaughtered by the diggers, every one of us.”
“How should I have known that some creatures we’d never seen before took the baby?”
“Oykib tried to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen. It’s one reason you aren’t fit to lead us. You never listen, you just decide based on what you already know. Well, Elemak, you don’t know everything.” Eiadh heard her own words and knew she was saying too much. The rage in his face was frightening. He hadn’t looked at her like that since…since she took Volemak’s oath during the voyage.
“So this is my greeting from my wife when I come home,” he said.
“I meant to greet you with joy,” said Eiadh, bowing her head. “I’m sorry.”
Because she had submitted, Elemak could turn his anger to others. “So I was wrong,” he said. “I didn’t hear any of you arguing with me!”
They answered him with silence.
“So don’t go criticizing me if you haven’t the brains to come up with a better idea.”
“We all had a better idea,” said Padarok quietly. “We all knew that you were wrong. We knew it from the beginning.”
His words were like a slap in Elemak’s face. “Then why did you follow me?”
“It was your daughter who was missing,” said Padarok.
“That didn’t mean that I was right,” said Elemak. “It probably meant my judgment wasn’t at its best.”
“Yes, that’s what I was saying,” said Padarok.
“You followed me because my judgment wasn’t good?” asked Elemak. “You all knew I was wrong, and you followed me because I was wrong?” The contempt in his voice made a poor disguise for the confusion he was obviously feeling.
“Elemak, come inside, come to the house,” Eiadh said.
“No, I want to understand this,” said Elemak. “I want to understand why these so-called men are so stupid that they knowingly follow someone that they think is wrong.”
“Please, Elemak.”
“We didn’t follow you because you were wrong,” Yasai finally said. “We followed you because you were irrational. We didn’t know what you’d do if we refused to obey.”
“What do you mean?” demanded Elemak. “What mattered was finding my daughter. That’s all that mattered.”
“Was it?” asked Eiadh. “If that was true, you would have stopped and listened to Oykib when he tried to tell you that it wasn’t the angels who took Zhivya. Now please, stop arguing about it. Everybody’s home safe and nobody was harmed.”
Elemak shrugged off the hand she had laid upon his arm. “Don’t patronize me, Eiadh.”
“Don’t be angry, Elemak,” she said. “Zhivya was lost, and she’s been restored to us. It’s a day for rejoicing, not anger. You might even thank the ones who brought her back to us.”
“Thank them? Because the Oversoul gave Nafai the only good weapon? Because they followed me on a foolish chase up the canyon because they knew it was foolish?”
Padarok stepped closer to Elemak. “No, Elemak. We followed you because we were afraid that you would do to one of us what you finally ended up doing to that harmless angel. And our fear was not unfounded. If you’ll remember, you came very close to doing it to me.”
Only now did Eiadh notice the bruises on Padarok’s neck and jaws.
“If Father hadn’t stood against you,” said Padarok.
Elemak, his face red with rage—or was it shame?—answered contemptuously. “Do you think I stopped because of his pathetic threats?”
“I don’t know why you stopped,” said Padarok. “But we never know whether you will stop. And so we obey you when you’re angry and irrational, because we’re afraid of you. And if you think about it without letting rage cloud your reason, you’ll realize that we have cause to be afraid.”
“Let’s go home, Elya,” said Eiadh again.
But Elemak was determined to have this out. “You would have let Zhivya die, because you were so afraid of me that you didn’t dare to argue with me?”
Paradok shook his head. “We knew that Nafai would get her back, if it could be done at all.”
“Nafai?” said Elemak. Then he roared. “Nafai! Nafai! Nafai! You trusted him to do it! You put my daughter’s life in his hands! What does he know, that stupid, boastful boy, that snot-nosed little pretender, that—”
“He did it!” Eiadh screamed at him. “You stupid angry fool, he did save her, so they were right to trust him!” Her screaming frightened the baby, who started to cry. But Eiadh couldn’t stop now. “And they knew that if you stayed here, you’d just do some angry stupid thing and cause a disaster, so it was better to have you off up the canyon where you wouldn’t start a war between us and the diggers. Do you get it now, Elemak? Now that you’ve made us tell you more than we ever meant to, will you finally understand what you are to us? We know that if anything delicate needs to be done, you’d better not be there, because you’ll always, always, always do something like what you did to that angel!”
For a moment Eiadh felt the thrill of having finally blurted out the truth, of having struck down the prideful man who had complicated her life so much for all these years.
Then she saw something she had never seen before. Elemak didn’t rage. His shoulders slumped. He visibly wilted. He looked at no one, met no one’s gaze. He just turned his back and walked into the forest.
“I’m sorry, Elya,” she called after him. “I was angry, I didn’t mean it.”
But he knew she meant it. Everyone knew she meant it, and everyone knew that what she had said was true. Everyone had known it for years. Finally, today, Elemak knew it too.
He came back the next day. Quiet, subdued. A different man. A broken man. Eiadh tried to apologize to him when they were alone in the house, but he walked out the door and wouldn’t listen. They shared their bed, but he never reached out to her. He would answer the children when they asked him questions, and sometimes he would play with them and laugh and smile like the old days. But he didn’t come to any of the meetings of the adults, and when Eiadh tried to involve him in decisions about their own household, he always answered the same way. “Whatever you want,” he said. “I don’t care.”
And he didn’t care, or so it seemed. He did his work in the fields, but he no longer had any ideas about what others should do. He simply did what he was asked. He worked hard. He exhausted himself, in fact. But he still seemed invisible.
I killed him, thought Eiadh.
Or maybe, just maybe, I took the first step toward healing him.
She would cling to that hope, she decided. This puzzling, quiet, withdrawn personality was just a stage in his development into a mature, wise, self-restrained, good man.
A man like Nafai.
Twelve
Friends
Shedemei asked Volemak for a meeting of all those involved in dealing with the two sentient species. “There are decisions to be made,” she said, and so when the evening meal was done, they gathered in the ship’s library: Volemak and Shedemei, of course, and along with them Nafai and Luet, Issib and Hushidh, and Oykib and Chveya. “I invited Elemak,” Volemak explained, “because he had so much experience back on Harmony, dealing with strange cultures and foreign leaders. He declined to come, but I’m still going to ask him to work with the diggers, at least. They’re the ones who are living practically on t
op of us—”
“Actually, we’re living on top of them,” said Nafai.
Volemak paused for a moment of patience, as if saying silently, When will the boy grow up enough not to make jokes during serious discussions? Luet leaned over to Nafai and jabbed his leg with her finger. He grinned stupidly at her.
Volemak went on. “And it’s imperative that we reach a workable living arrangement. I don’t know about you, but what I saw the night of the kidnapping was a seriously conflicted digger society—an abduction organized by the son of the blood king, contrasted with the worship from the wife of the war king. The very fact that the wife—what’s her name?”
“Emeezem,” said Oykib.
“The fact that Emeezem succeeded where, um….”
“Mufruzhuuzh.”
“Where Muffle-whatever had failed may have weakened him. Therefore we can count on there being a faction that wants to rid the Earth of human beings, and perhaps two—Mufya’s and the plotters who did the actual kidnapping. I think Elemak can be valuable in reaching some kind of understanding with the hostile ones.”
“If he’ll do it,” said Hushidh. “He isn’t very closely bonded right now with anyone. Not even Protchnu, since the boy couldn’t keep himself from bragging to his father about how he was the one who discovered the entrance to the digger city up in a tree. It wasn’t a welcome topic at home.”
“You saw this domestic scene?” asked Volemak.
“I heard about it from an eyewitness,” said Hushidh.
“So it’s gossip,” said Volemak.
“First-generation gossip,” said Hushidh. “Very accurate. The best quality.”
Volemak smiled, then repeated firmly. “Gossip.”
Nafai spoke up. “I think Elemak’s the natural choice to work with the diggers.”
“There won’t be just one,” said Volemak. “And do us all a favor, Nafai. Don’t let it be known that you favor the idea of Elemak having such an assignment.”
Earthfall (Homecoming) Page 22