Gods of the Greataway

by Coney, Michael G.

  Manuel had been silent for a long time, thinking and hoping …

  And now Ana had, in some subtle fashion, taken over. She had brought them back to her cave and they were discussing plans. Outside, the night was quiet and there were no travelers on the road, neither man nor animal. The wind gently stirred the sapa cloth hanging over the entrance, the tiny rodents shuttled endlessly to and fro in the corner, and Ana spoke of the sea.

  “You have a boat, Manuel — I’ve often seen you fishing in it.”

  “I built it myself. It’ll take me anywhere.”

  “Belinda came from the sea, so she probably went back there. We can follow her, but I don’t think your boat is big enough for four of us. We must build another, and you can show us how.”

  Manuel said doubtfully, “I think the sea is empty. There’s never been anything out there except me.”

  “You have no idea just how vast the sea is, Manuel. You could sail for days and never come to the end of it.”

  “No, you couldn’t.” Manuel was practical. “The wind always blows you back.”

  “Always?” And she leaned forward, her shoulders smooth, her dark hair falling across her face. Her eyes glowed in the lantern’s light. “Always, Manuel?”

  “Well … except at the time of the snake clouds. And nobody can sail then. Everybody goes to the Life Caves, or else they die. Even the guanacos go away.” He asked the question that everyone had asked themselves from time to time. “Where do you go, Ana?”

  She pointed to the back of the cave. “In there. I have plenty of lifeweed there.”

  It was a comfortable evening in Ana’s cave, with the warm draperies, the fat cushions to sit on, the friendly glow of the lantern, the company of one another and, most particularly, of Ana. She fed them a hot stew, which bubbled before a fire of a type that Manuel had never seen before. The fireplace was cut into the sandstone and the chimney was a separate tunnel, so that the smoke didn’t get into the cave. Manuel made a mental note to build a chimney like that for his shack, at the same time feeling a little foolish that he hadn’t thought of it himself.

  The stew was tasty and full of strange meats and herbs that Manuel found delicious, although Zozula, accustomed to the bland food of the Dome, thought it a little too spicy. He didn’t say so, though. Like many men before him, he had fallen completely under Ana’s spell. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she moved about the cave serving them food. When she bent low to hand them fruit, he could see the heaviness of her breasts; when she tended the fire, her body was outlined through the sapa cloth. Yet he didn’t feel any lust. Men felt lust when they thought of Ana from a distance. When they were with her, they felt only wonder. Zozula felt an uncomplicated fascination for this practical, mature woman. The Girl, too, watched her with admiration.

  Later Manuel fell asleep on his couch of soft cushions, to the low voices of Zozula and Ana discussing the future and the voyage. He fell asleep in safety, with the feeling that everything was being taken care of. He didn’t really believe he would ever see Belinda again, but meanwhile he was warm and full and with friends. He slept comfortably against the soft plumpness of the Girl.

  Zozula said, “The idea scares me, Ana. Going out there at the time of snake clouds? The villagers call it the Chokes, and I know why. I was caught out there once, years ago, and …” He fell silent, remembering an old woman who had saved him, and her daughter, who in some way reminded him now of Ana.

  “It’s only the idea that’s frightening, Zo. We’re all so used to running for shelter when the snake clouds come — it’s drilled into people from childhood. All I’m really suggesting is that we take our Life Cave with us. We build a cabin on the boat, and we put plenty of lifeweed in it.”

  “You’ve been talking as though you’re coming yourself.” Zozula hesitated. “We’re grateful for your ideas, Ana, but … This voyage is for Manuel, the Girl and me.”

  She came close and took his hand, and later he remembered having looked into her eyes for a long time.

  And later, also, there seemed to be no question about it. Ana was coming with them.

  *

  They built the boat under the skeptical eyes of the villagers, on the beach near Manuel’s shack. In fact it was a raft rather than a boat, ten meters by six, with a cabin set centrally, big enough for four people to lie down beside their provisions and a big mound of lifeweed. During construction of the cabin Ana proposed a modification: The lifeweed would be better laid on tiered shelving. It gave off its essence better if it was spread out, and it was easier to keep it uniformly damp that way, too, for it died if it dried out.

  Hasqual the wanderer, watching from the clifftop, called down, “A raft can’t sail against the wind, Manuel. You need a keelboat — surely you know that?” He clambered down, anxious to help.

  “We sail at the time of snake clouds,” muttered Manuel, embarrassed at how ridiculous that sounded.

  Hasqual didn’t laugh. Instead, he investigated the raft, opened the cabin door, saw the shelving and put two and two together, then said, “That makes sense.” And he set to and helped, tying vines around the logs with expert knots, making suggestions for rain-proofing the roof. “Dad Ose has been praying for you,” he said at one point.

  “That’s good. I haven’t had a chance to speak to God lately.”

  “You’re going to need all the help you can get. I … Maybe I ought to come along, Manuel.” There was a longing in his eyes as they drifted from the raft to the blue sea. The old wanderlust was getting to him again.

  Manuel looked for the others, but they were farther up the beach, cutting vines. “There’s not really room,” he said. “Ana’s coming as well, you know.”

  “Ana …? Yes, that’s a good thing. She’s a clever woman. I … I wish you the best of luck, Manuel. I suppose you’re hoping to find that girl, eh? The sea’s a big place, you know. Don’t be too disappointed, will you? And … Come back here, afterward. You may not realize this, but we need you in the village.”

  Two days later, Insel, lying on his back, cloud-struck and mumbling, forecast snake clouds.

  *

  The sail filled, and Ana held the sheets while Manuel and Zozula splashed through the shallows, guiding the raft into deeper water. Then, with the thin air whistling in their lungs, they hauled themselves aboard.

  “In the cabin, you two,” said Ana. “Quickly!”

  They shut the door after them and, breathing the rich essence of the lifeweed, soon recovered.

  The wind had changed within a day of Insel’s prediction, shifting around so that it blew directly from the distant mountains. The puffy, rain-laden horse clouds of the trade winds had disappeared, to be replaced by the sinister lofty trails of the snake clouds. The villagers had fled for the Life Caves, so nobody was at the clifftop to watch the great departure. Or so Manuel thought, sadly, as he emerged from the cabin and watched his home receding.

  Then a lone figure waved. Manuel waved back and, feeling better, sat beside Ana.

  So began what is called in the Song of Earth “the Voyage Without an End.” Of course, the voyage did have an end, because it is recorded that Ana reappeared at Pu’este; and the further adventures of Manuel, the Girl and Zozula are well known. But of the voyage itself there is no factual record — only hearsay and legend — because the Rainbow does not monitor the happenings on the oceans of Earth. Did Manuel find his Belinda? On some happentracks he did, and the Girl mourned the loss of him.

  THE GIRL CALLED KELINA

  She was the prettiest girl in Polysitia, and she was brave and intelligent, too, but all this was of no use to her when the crisis came. In the end it was Starquin himself who saved her, the minstrels tell. They sing of Kelina to this day, of her escape from a fate that used to be described as worse than death, her adventures following the escape, and her final death — by the hand of Starquin, so they say …

  Tall, slim and brown-skinned, she was a king’s daughter, and people often thought she was
proud, although in point of fact she was shy. Every day she would walk to the water with a skin of triggershrimp shells on her head — she may have been a king’s daughter but he was a very small king, and nearly all Polysitians must work — and she would throw the soft shells to the guidewhales and the orcas, who would gather round the island’s edge to feed on the debris. She rarely spoke, rarely looked at the poor jerkfishermen sitting on the edge of the island, rarely acknowledged the women tending the grass and working at the fishponds. She was torn between her desire to be friendly and her fear that it might be misinterpreted as condescension. So she walked alone, and there were many young men who longed to light the fires behind those beautiful, slanting Polysitian eyes.

  None more so than Rider Or Kikiwa.

  Kelina’s father was King Awamia, ruler of all Uami, which was one hundred fifty square kilometers in extent, and Or Kikiwa was one of his Riders, and probably the least trusted one.

  “I can’t think why you ever Mounted that man,” Queen Lehina said.

  “He performed a Feat of Valor,” King Awamia told her once again. “I had no option.”

  “I consider his Feat suspect. And on the basis of one suspect Feat, he now rides an orca and is granted lands. It’s not right, Awamia. There are more deserving men.”

  “His lands are in poor state.”

  “Healthy enough for him to build a tower and treat his workers like dirt.”

  Polysitians have no written or computerized history. Everything of importance is remembered by minstrels and sung at the evening meals beside the sunset walls of the towers, when work is over. The most important songs — or possibly those containing the most vivid images — are those remembered. The story of Kelina was both vivid and important. Historians of a later era discovered it on a remote floating island, and made the essential connection between it and the Song of Earth.

  Kikiwa’s Feat is part of the story and, according to the latest versions, that Feat was certainly suspect. It seems that Kikiwa was once a trainer of orcas, little better than a worker but, through an accident of birth, a protégé of Or Halohea, a Rider of some renown. The island at that time had fifteen Riders, brave men clad in sealskin who rode the killer whales, driving away any predators who might seek to tear at the fabric of the island or worry the domestic fish that lived beneath the shoreline. In token of their station, Riders were granted land and assigned workers.

  One day Kikiwa was exercising Or Halohea’s whale while the Rider was at his tower, dealing with Riderly matters. Kikiwa sat upright behind the dorsal sail, grasping a rein of kelpite, holding his breath as the whale plunged and gazing arrogantly around whenever he surfaced. He wore the tough elephant seal skins of the Rider, a pretension that did not endear him to the jerkfishermen sitting on the shore. He uttered shouts of instruction to the whale, although he was, like many Polysitians, in empathy with the beast and probably could have directed him telepathically.

  “I’d like to see him shouting underwater,” one of the jerkfishermen remarked to his neighbor, sourly.

  “He couldn’t stay down long enough to try.”

  In point of fact, Kikiwa could hold his breath for over five minutes, as long as most Riders. Physically he was well qualified for advancement too, being tall and strong and a fine swimmer. Aware of the dashing figure he cut, he circled the orca around the bay, hoping Kelina might happen this way and pause to admire him.

  The event that was to change the course of his life happened quite simply, by accident. A child, walking along the shore, caught her foot in a loop of grass and, thrown off balance by a sudden swell, tumbled into the sea. At first, nobody saw her. Like all Polysitians, she had been able to swim almost from birth, but a strong offshore wind and underisland current carried her away. Kikiwa heard her screams and headed the orca in her direction.

  The huge black-and-white animal cut the water like a battleship, throwing an impressive bow wave. Kikiwa sat upright, holding the rein with one hand, the other arm extended theatrically for balance.

  And then, suddenly, he and the orca were no longer the only large creatures in the bay. Another dorsal fin cut the water nearby. A sinuous shape was clearly visible underwater. With a yell of fear Kikiwa caused the orca to veer away, allowing the shark to move in on the little girl.

  The violent swerve of the orca unseated Kikiwa, however, and he fell howling into the water. The orca, released from the immediate proximity of his fear-thoughts, swerved again, sighted the shark, and attacked. The water churned red. Kikiwa and the child drifted on. Then the whale returned, triumphant, and a shaking Kikiwa pulled himself on board, at least having the presence of mind to drag the little girl after him. He urged the orca shoreward and shortly was basking in the plaudits of the crowd. The next day, in a brief ceremony, King Awamia pronounced him Or Kikiwa, and it seemed to him that Kelina, at her father’s side, regarded him in admiration.

  When he tried to follow the matter up, however, he was rebuffed. “Yes, you are a Rider, Or Kikiwa,” she said, “but there is more to a man than simple physical courage.”

  Or Kikiwa was no hero. Although his appearance was impressive and his riding ability adequate, he knew, deep down, that he was a coward dressed in Rider’s skins. He tried too hard to compensate for this, dealing arrogantly with his people and snapping back at imagined insults. If he had been a difficult man before, he now became impossible. His workers left him. His exploits on the back of his orca became so foolhardy that the other Riders began to refuse to accompany him, for fear Or Kikiwa would lead them to purposeless death. “You are neglecting the Code,” said Or Halohea at last, pointing up the ultimate folly of Or Kikiwa’s behavior. “Squid and parrotfish are eating at your shores while you take on sharks as though they were dragons. And your land is so decayed it begins to threaten your neighbor’s.”

  Indeed, Or Kikiwa was in danger of suffering the ultimate disgrace for a Rider: isolation. His neighbor, Or Honu, had made representations to King Awamia. He wanted Or Kikiwa’s lands cut adrift before his own lands could be poisoned. “I invoke the Code,” he said. “What I ask is for the good of the grass.”

  Possibly this is when that fated man’s reason finally snapped. Or Kikiwa disappeared and was never seen again by the islanders. His domain lay deserted and rotting, his tower listed and sagged, in danger of falling through the ground that decayed beneath it. His orca was gone. It was said that he’d ridden off on it, seeking new lands and a fresh start.

  And Kelina was gone too.

  King Awamia was beside himself. He dispatched his ten best Riders to search the ocean, bending the Code in leaving only a handful of Riders to defend the island. In due course the search parties returned with tales of strange beasts and strange lands, but no word of Or Kikiwa or Kelina.

  King Awamia decreed that Or Kikiwa’s rotting land be severed from the island, and for six days the Riders urged their mounts to chew, and all the people tore at the fibrous blades and roots with their bare hands and chopped with sharpened turtleshell and cuttlefish. On the seventh day, the domain of Or Kikiwa drifted away on the trade winds, with no guide-whales to restrain it.

  And, unknown to King Awamia, his daughter Kelina drifted with it.

  She lay where she’d lain for many days, in a chamber of Or Kikiwa’s tower so tightly woven that it would have taken her weeks to pick herself free. She had food: a pool of trigger-shrimps and fish enough for a season. She had air, for the dense mesh of her prison was still porous enough to allow the trade winds through. Water she didn’t need; like all Polysitians, an occasional immersion in the sea fulfilled all her body’s requirements. Hope she didn’t have — after two weeks she had only unraveled a fraction of her prison walls. She thought of diving into the pool and swimming under the island, but the tower was situated in the center of Or Kikiwa’s domain, and she knew she would never be able to reach the shoreline before she drowned. So she lay there, day after day, quietly picking at the mesh of fibrous roots.

  Or Kikiwa was elsew
here. He had visions of glory. He had dreams of an empire so vast that all people would be forced to acknowledge his greatness, even the powerful Black King Usali. He would bring Kelina back a domain of inestimable size, propelled by guidewhales of prodigious strength, peopled by workers of unusual skill and subservience.

  A normal man, possessed of such a vision — if normal men do have such visions — would have set to and captured wild guidewhales and trained them, a process that would only have taken a few years. He would have then set his guidewhales to rounding up uninhabited rafts of grass. Grass soon knits together, and a sizable island could be collected in a lifetime.

  But Or Kikiwa didn’t have a lifetime. Kelina was waiting for him, so the empire must be built rapidly. He must conquer. Drunk with the madness of omnipotence, he shouted his desires at the sunrise as he urged the orca eastward. The low profile of a small islet appeared on the horizon.

  He attacked at noon and was driven off by three contemptuous Riders waving whalebone clubs. He attempted to outflank them and gain the shore, and they let him do this and followed him inland, pinioning him and taking his orca-rib dagger from him. The ordinary people laughed at him. Women cast clumps of stinking, diseased grass at him, men slipped wriggling fish inside his sealskin. They dragged him before the king.

  “Submit or be conquered!” Or Kikiwa shouted. By now he was totally mad.

  “Throw him back,” said the king. “He’s not worth keeping.”

  If he was mad, his first experience nevertheless lent him cunning. When he approached the next island, he behaved with more circumspection. Asking for an audience with the king, he was received into the royal tower. In a sagging, swaying chamber he proposed a great alliance, linking his host’s lands with those of his own, which, in his imagination, by now covered a fair percentage of the ocean. The king was puzzled.

  “Alliance against what?”

  Or Kikiwa explained that the alliance would involve a pooling of knowledge and resources and, in accordance with the Code, would result in betterment of the grass. With all the smaller islands eventually joined into one, the boundaries would be proportionally shorter and easier to defend against predators.