What added to the eeriness of the scene was the silence and near-immobility of the creatures. Unlike the giant sea lizards, who seemed to be constantly in motion, these ammonites were just floating on the surface. Their only movement was an occasional slow flutter of tentacles to keep them in position so their eyes could gaze steadily at Sebetwe.
Huge eyes; lidless eyes; unwavering eyes. Meshwe thought he might have nightmares about them when he slept.
Next to him, Sebetwe finally spoke. “Join me, Tekkutu,” he said. “I need your wisdom.”
The suggestion was…unusual. Tekku did not work well—as a rule, not at all—when more than one tekkutu tried to meld minds with a predator. Such beasts invariably had a narrow psychic focus, which did not react well to complexity.
But were these ammonites really predators, in the normal sense of the term? Meshwe wasn’t sure.
Yes, they ate meat. But they were not active hunters in the same way that the sea lizards or the turtlesnakes were—or gantrak or any land predator, for that matter. They grazed for meat, as it were. Their great nest of tentacles would reach out and engulf anything around them. They seemed quite indifferent to the nature of their meal. Fish, large and small; crustaceans scuttling across the sea floor; incautious sea birds; anything at all—even other ammonites, if they were considerably smaller and foolish enough to come too close.
It was done quite casually, to all appearances. There was none of the intent focus of a hunter chasing after its prey. If a fish managed to wriggle out of the tentacle mass, or a crustacean scuttled quickly enough under a rock—or another ammonite fought them off long enough to escape—they seemed quite indifferent. There would always be more food coming along, soon enough. And meanwhile, as they floated on the surface, their eyes looked elsewhere.
Meshwe took himself into the tekku trance; quickly, with the skill of long practice.
He found Sebetwe’s mind almost immediately. The younger tekkutu was by now almost as skilled as Meshwe—more skilled, when it came to this new facet of the art—but he’d been his student for years. Meshwe could have found him in an ocean of mental turbulence.
Almost as quickly, he became aware of Sebetwe’s…audience, was the only term Meshwe could think of. His guess had been right. The minds of these ammonites were not at all similar to those of predators he had encountered in the past. They were much more akin to the minds of plant-eaters, except—
They were vastly greater. Those must be huge brains, nestled somewhere inside the floating behemoths.
Strange brains, judging from the strange minds. They were like nothing Meshwe had ever encountered.
Not intelligent; not, at least, in any sense that would mean anything to a Liskash or a Mrem. But very far from dull-witted, either. And there was a sense of cool space to their minds—a sort of vastness, you might call it.
They were ultimately quite passive, he realized. So big, so powerful, so well armored that fear was essentially unknown to them. And so also were fear’s cousins, aggression and fury. So dominant by their very nature that they had no need, no instinct, to dominate at all.
They were observers, more than actors. Very curious. Indeed, as his own mind probed deeper into theirs, he realized that their strongest emotion was probably curiosity itself.
They didn’t need food. Food came to them; food was a given.
He didn’t think they needed to mate, either, although he wasn’t sure. For all their immense size, these creatures were still akin to those little shelled creatures who simply scattered their seed with careless abandon. For them, reproduction would be simply another given. It would have no roots in passion or lust.
He almost laughed aloud, then. The monsters were bored.
Well, not bored, exactly. Boredom needed intent focus also. It might be better to say that the giant ammonites passed their lives in a state of mind so placid that any sort of entertainment would fix their attention.
Fix it mightily, he thought.
Mightily enough, perhaps, to allow an entire people to find their sanctuary.
He withdrew from the mindmeld.
“I will be back soon,” he said to Sebetwe, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “In the meantime, keep them interested in you.”
Sebetwe nodded curtly, but his eyes remained closed. Meshwe strode off the little promontory and headed toward the clot of dancers on the nearby beach.
Nurat Merav
She stared up at the old Liskash, wondering if he were serious.
His jaws opened in the Liskash version of a smile. “Yes, I am quite serious.” He motioned toward the dancers, still moving through their steps. “This wedding dance is not right. Close, but not close enough. It is too ceremonial. We need something that conjures simple joy and delight. No solemnity at all.”
Achia Pazik had broken off her part in the dance when she’d seen Meshwe approaching and had come over. She joined them in time to hear the last few sentences.
“What about the Jottuk Festival Dance?” she suggested.
Nurat Merav stared at her. “But…That’s just a kit’s dance!”
Achia Pazik shrugged. “True. But you have to admit it’s joyous and delightful. Not a trace of solemnity to be found anywhere.”
“Do you even remember the steps?”
Achia Pazik grimaced ruefully. “I think so. We’ll probably miss a few, at first, until we’ve practiced a bit.”
She looked at Meshwe. “Do you think that will be a problem?”
He turned his head to look out at the great shells floating in the distance. “I doubt very much if they would know the difference. What matters is simply capturing the delight, and the joy.”
Achia Pazik and Nurat Merav looked at each other. Then, at Meshwe. Then, back at each other.
Nurat Merav tried to lever herself upright in the litter—which was more in the way of a pallet, by now, with added cushions and hides. Hissing with concern, Zuluku and Selani helped her to sit up. Not knowing what else to do, Zuluku and her companions had continued to serve as Nurat Merav’s caretakers.
Once her head was high enough, Nurat Merav sheltered her eyes from the sun with a hand and stared at the monsters in the sea.
“Do I understand this correctly? You want me to shape a dance for—for—these—”
“I think they are much like children, in their own way,” said Meshwe. “Please, Nurat Merav. Indulge an old tekkutu.”
“If that’s what you want.” She leaned back, supporting herself partly on spread hands but mostly on the strong grips of her two Liskash tenders. Then, after thinking on the matter for a while, she looked up at Achia Pazik.
“I’ve forgotten some of the steps myself. It doesn’t matter, though, since we’ll be modifying it a lot. I think mixing in some of the steps from the Drunkard’s Dance would probably help—and it would sure be a lot easier to do on a floating raft.”
Achia Pazik frowned. “Why would we do it on a raft?”
Nurat Merav grinned. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? The crazy old tekkutu here”—she nodded toward Meshwe—“figures we can keep the shelled monsters happy while we cross the strait to the island.”
The dancer stared at Meshwe. “But…What about the sea lizards? Do you think they’ll be kept happy also?”
Meshwe whistled his derision. “Not likely! From what I can tell, the only thing that keeps those things happy is devouring something. Maybe mating would excite them too, but I haven’t seen them doing that yet. For which I am truly thankful.”
More seriously, he added: “But I’ve been watching them and one thing is obvious: they stay well away from the ammonites. I think they’re afraid of them. Wary, at least.”
He shrugged. The gesture was quite similar to the one used by the Mrem. So similar, in fact, that Nurat Merav had found herself wondering if one race had learned it from the other.
It was possible. They’d co-existed for a long time now. Not too happily, perhaps, but they’d still managed it for centuri
es. Maybe longer. No one knew.
“It’s a risk, I admit,” said Meshwe. “All of it’s a risk. But I don’t see where we have any choice.”
He pointed now to the mountains rising in the west. They were some distance away, since the slope down to the sea was shallow and the foothills between were wide. Still, they were easily visible.
“Zilikazi’s army will be starting down the slope soon. By tomorrow morning, our scouts say. And there’s no way to stop them. They’ll be coming through the same broad saddle pass our people used. You remember it, I’m sure. Gentle slopes on the sides, very few rocks, and no streams beyond little rills. Their warriors outnumber ours at least eight-to-one. Our only chance now is to find sanctuary on the island.”
“And what will stop them from crossing after us?” asked Achia Pazik.
For whatever odd reason, that question banished all of Nurat Merav’s doubts and hesitations.
“Ha!” she exclaimed. “You think that scaly snake”—realizing she was perhaps bordering on insult, she gave the Liskash around her an semi-apologetic smile—“meaning no offense to anyone here—but if you think that—that—”
“Scaly snake,” Meshwe offered.
Nurat Merav grinned. “That scaly snake can keep monsters as entertained as we can, you’ve never see what a really well-designed dance can do!”
Sebetwe
When Meshwe returned to the rock spur, he brought two other Kororo with him. One of them was Zinzile, the oldest and most experienced tekkutu other than Meshwe himself. The one with her was her son Tofar, who had only a smidgen of her experience but was a very talented tekkutu in his own right.
“Sebetwe, show them what you’re doing and how you’re doing it,” Meshwe commanded. “They can take over keeping the ammonites interested—”
“We should call them the Sure Ones,” Sebetwe interrupted. “It’s how they see themselves, I think. That, or maybe the Constant Ones.”
“As you wish. Once Zinzile and Tofar can take over with the Sure Ones, you and I need to make plans. I have come up with an idea.”
The old tekkutu’s jaws gaped. Sebetwe felt himself grow wary. He remembered that look of amusement well. Meshwe’s jaws had gaped just so the day long past when he’d half-tossed a then-little and very scared Sebetwe into the enclosure to face a tritti.
The little monster had bitten him. It hurt. But Meshwe’s jaws had only gaped wider.
On the other hand, they’d gaped wider still a few days later when another tritti—not the same one; Meshwe had killed that nasty wretch and good riddance—had come to sit placidly on Sebetwe’s outstretched forearm.
Chapter 14
Zilikazi
After all this! Zilikazi was so furious he had to restrain himself from shattering the scout leader’s mind. The effort was almost physical, so great was the urge.
And then, as his thoughts cooled a bit and he realized what his only course of action could be, he did strike down the scout leader. Terror now had to be marshaled. Great terror. It was the only thing that would drive his army to do what had to be done.
It would have been simple to crush the scout’s mind. Fear, then unconsciousness, then death. All in less than a minute. There were not many nobles who could kill that easily just with the use of their minds.
But while that would produce fear and dread, it would not produce the sort of near-gibbering terror that Zilikazi needed to instill in his troops. So, he spent the time and effort to force the scout leader to shatter his own body. The terror he sent coursing down every channel in that body caused muscles to spasm so ferociously that they snapped bones and ruptured vertebrae.
When it was over—the scout not quite dead, but his body a mass of broken flesh that would not survive more than a short time—Zilikazi fixed his subordinates with a basilisk gaze.
“Henceforth, this will be the punishment for failure.” He paused briefly, allowing time for anyone who dared to point out that by no reasonable criterion could the scout leader be said to have “failed.” Failed at what? He’d sent warning to Zilikazi that the Kororo were crossing the strait as soon as he realized himself, had he not? What was he then supposed to do? Swim out into the strait with his handful of scouts and somehow capsize the great rafts they were using to make their escape?
No one spoke, of course. He’d have been astonished if they had. He’d simply paused to allow all of them to contemplate the fact that Zilikazi was being completely unreasonable.
As he was, indeed. The time for reason was now past. Against all expectations, the Krek had continued to elude his grasp.
Now was the time for will.
He pointed to the woods and groves on the lower slopes. They came almost right up to the beach.
“If they can build rafts, so can we. And we will build many more of them, and we will build them faster.”
Again, he paused. Not long.
“Do as I command.”
Zuluku
Zuluku was almost gibbering with terror herself. So were Raish and Selani. The only thing keeping them steady enough not to was the close presence of Nurat Merav. Much as they had during the cold nights of the mountain crossing, the three young Liskash females were huddled around the Mrem’s pallet.
Zuluku would have been happier if that pallet had been positioned in the very center of the raft, instead of against a railing. She could perhaps then have been able to ignore the horrifying creatures that were themselves clustering nearby. But the center of the raft was empty, so that the Mrem dancing there—Achia Pazik, she was called—had the room she needed for a dance that was insanely acrobatic.
It didn’t look like a dance at all, to Zuluku. Dancing was not unknown, among Liskash. But it was a slow and ceremonious affair, usually done as part of solemn rituals, not this mad whirling and capering and leaping about.
And screeching! The Mrem shouted and cried out as they danced. The noise was almost as chaotic as their movements.
It helped—a bit—that Nurat Merav’s kits were completely oblivious to the peril of the situation. Both of them were peering about with keen interest. By now, they were quite unafraid of their dam’s Liskash companions. Indeed, one of them—that was the female kit, whom Nurat Merav called by the name of Abi—had climbed onto the low railing which had been placed on the sides of the pallet and was balanced there precariously, steadying herself with both hands on Zuluku’s left shoulder.
For some odd reason, Zuluku found the pressure of the tiny hands reassuring. Perhaps the innocence of infants would protect them from madness.
For madness this surely was. The rafts the Kororo were using to make the crossing to the island were big, true, but they were hardly what anyone would call sturdy. There had been no time for anything but crude designs and even cruder workmanship. The rafts were just piles of logs roped together with piles of more slender rods—stripped branches, half the time—roped on top at a perpendicular angle to make what was laughingly call a “deck.”
They’d made crude sails, too, but so far those had proved useless. The sails were much too primitive to do anything but run with the wind—and the wind was blowing from the wrong direction. Sails would have just driven them along the shore toward the great rocky cliffs to the north where another river entered the sea through a deep gorge.
So, they were forced to row their way across, with oars that were every bit as crude and clumsy as the sails. Basically, they were just big poles swiveled against upright posts. The paddles at the ends of the oars had been made from the dismantled parts of wagons. They were also attached with nothing better than ropes, and already one of the paddles had disintegrated from the pressure.
Which—this was the one bright feature—was considerable. Since every raft was packed with people, there were plenty of arms and backs able to strain at the oars, with plenty of replacements whenever someone got too tired to continue.
They’d kept rowing with that oar, by just attaching a piles of brambles to the end. It made for a heavy loa
d when the rowers had to lift it out of the water for the return stroke, but it was better than nothing.
Needless to say, their progress was slow. They’d launched at dawn, but they’d be doing well to make landfall on the island by sunset. If need be, she’d been told, the Krek’s leaders planned to keep rowing through the night. Luckily, there was enough of a moon to be able to see the island even after sundown.
Assuming it didn’t rain, of course. Zuluku had no idea if that was likely or not. The sky looked clear—bright blue and almost cloudless, in fact—but she had no experience with the weather here by the sea. For all she knew, bright blue skies by day meant terrible storms at night.
She heard Raish issue a little hiss of fear. Glancing toward her, she saw that one of the ammonite monsters had come almost to the side of the raft. The hideous thing was looking right at her!
With that huge, unblinking eye. Then, one of its tentacles looped lazily out of the water and curled over the railing.
They were doomed! It was going to capsize the raft and eat them all!
Little Abi squealed with excitement and tried to reach the tentacle tip with her hands completely extended.
The gruesome tentacle—it had suckers! with teeth in them! in every single one of them!—rose from the railing and extended itself to meet those hands. For just an instant, before Zuluku could snatch her back, Abi’s fingers touched the tip of the tentacle.
The tentacle curled away; and a moment later it fell back into the sea. The great eye just kept staring at Zuluku.
If only it would blink.
Meshwe
“It’s going quite well, I think,” said Meshwe. He and Sebetwe were taking a break. They’d found that mindmelding with the Sure Ones, while it lacked the acute stress of merging with a predator, produced its own form of psychic fatigue. Liskash—Mrem even less—were just not well-suited by nature to maintain a constant equanimity.
Profound equanimity. It was now clear to Meshwe that the minds of the Sure Ones were completely unlike any minds he’d ever encountered.
Reptiles he knew, mammals he knew. There was even a carnivorous giant frog that he’d melded with on a few occasions. But those minds were all closely akin to his, practically cousins, compared to these. Meshwe knew that some of the shamans who specialized in the study of nature thought that squids and ammonites were actually related to such things as clams and oysters.
By Tooth and Claw - eARC Page 21