“Where is Liku! Tell me, where is Liku?'^ At the sound of Liku's name Tanakil began to struggle and scream as though she had fallen into deep water. The fat woman was screaming too and the new one had scrambled to her shoulder. The old man was running along the lip of the cliff. Chestnut-head was coming from where the log was. He rushed straight at Lok and his teeth were bare. The screaming and the teeth terrified Lok. He let Tanakil go so that she reeled back. Her foot struck Chestnut-head's knee just as he launched himself at Lok. He travelled through the air past Lok, grunting faintly and went over the cliff. He just fitted the delicate curve of the descent so that he seemed to skim down on his belly, never more than a hand's breadth away from rock but never touching it. He vanished and did not even leave a scream behind him. The old man flung a stick at Lok who could see that there was a sharp stone on the end and avoided it. Then he was running between the fat woman with her mouth open and Tanakil flat on her back. The men who had thrown twigs at Fa had turned and were watching Lok. He went very fast across the slope until he reached the strip of hide that held the log. He ran through this and it took most of the skin off his shin before it gave. The log began to slide backwards. The people ceased to watch Lok and watched the log instead so that he turned his head as he ran to see what they were looking at. The log got up speed on two rollers but after that they were not necessary. It left the slope where the descent steepened and travelled on through the air. The back end hit a point of rock and the log opened in two halves all along its length. The two halves went on, turning round and round until they smashed into the forest. Lok leapt into a gully and the people were out of sight.
Fa was jumping about at the head of the gully and he ran towards her as fast as he could. The men were advancing across the rocks with their bent sticks but he reached her first. They were about to climb further when the men stopped for the old man was shouting at them. Even without knowing the words Lok could understand his gestures. The men ran down the rock and were lost to view. Fa was showing her teeth too.
She came at Lok brandishing her arms and there was still a sharp stone in one hand.
“Why did you not snatch the new one?" Lok put out his hands defensively.
“I asked for Liku. I asked Tanakil." Fa's arms came down slowly.
“Come!"
The sun was sinking towards the gap and making a whirl of gold and red. They could see the new people hurrying about on the terrace as Fa led the way towards the cliff above the overhang. The new people had shifted the hollow log to thÈ upriver end of the terrace and were trying to get it past the jam of tree-trunks that now lay where Lok and Fa had crossed to the island. They slid it from the terrace and it lay in the water with logs all round it. The men were heaving at the tree-trunks, try- ing to deflect them to the other side of the rock where they would be swept away over the fall. Fa ran about on the mountainside.
“They will take the new one with them."
She began to run down the steep rock as the sun sank into the gap. There was red now over the mountains and the ice women were on fire. Lok shouted suddenly and Fa stopped and looked down at the water. There was a tree coming towards the jam; not a small trunk or a splintered fragment but a whole tree from some forest over the horizon. It was coming along this side of the gap, a colony of budding twigs and branches, a vast, half-hidden trunk, and roots that spread above the water and held enough earth between them to make a hearth for all the people in the world. As it came into sight the old man began to yell and dance. The women looked up from the bundles they were lowering into the hollow log and the men scrambled back across the jam. The roots struck the jam and splintered logs leapt into the air or stood up slowly. They caught the roots and hung. The tree stopped moving and swung sideways until it lay along the cliff beyond the terrace. Now there was a tangle of logs between the hollow log and the open water like a huge line of thorns. The jam had become an impassable barrier.
The old man stopped shouting. He ran to one of the bundles and began to open it. He shouted to Tuami who ran, holding Tanakil by the hand. They were coming along the terrace.
“Quickly!"
Fa fled away down the side of the mountain towards the entrance to the terrace and the overhang. As she ran she shouted to Lok:
“We will take Tanakil. Then they will give back the new one."
The rock was different. The colours that had drenched the world when Lok awoke from his honey sleep were richer, deeper. He seemed to leap and scamper through a tide of red air and the shadows behind the rocks were mauve. He dropped down the slope.
Together they stopped at the entrance to the terrace and crouched. The river was running crimson and there were golden flashes on it. The mountains on the other side of the river had become so dark that Lok had to peer at it before he discovered that it was dark blue. The jam and the tree and the toiling figures on it were black. But the terrace and the overhang were still brightly lit by the red light. The stag was dancing again, dancing on the slope of earth that led up to the overhang and' he faced into the space where Mai had died before the right-hand recess. He was black against the fire where the sun was sinking and as he moved he wielded long rays of sunlight that dazzled the eyes. Tuami was working in the overhang, smearing colour on a shape that stood between the two recesses against the pillar. Tanakil was there, a small, thin, black figure crouching where the fire had been.
From the other end of the terrace came a rhythmic clop! clop! Two of the men were cutting at the log that Lok had jammed. The sun buried itself in cloud, red shot up to the top of the sky and the mountains were black.
The stag blared. Tuami came running out of the overhang, running towards the jam where the men were working and Tanakil started to scream. The clouds swarmed over the sun and the pressure went out of the redness so that it seemed to float in the gap like a thinner water. Now the stag was bounding away towards the jam and the men were struggling with the log like beetles on a dead bird.
Lok ran forward and Tanakil's scream echoed the screams of Liku crossing the water so that they frightened him. He stood in the entrance to the overhang, gibbering.
“Where is Liku? What have you done with Liku?"
Tanakil's body straightened, arched, and her eyes rolled. She stopped screaming and lay on her back and there was blood between her grinning teeth. Fa and Lok crouched in front of her.
The overhang had altered like everything else. Tuami had made a figure for the old man and it stood there against the pillar and glared at them. They could see how quickly, savagely he had worked for the figure was smeared and not filled in as carefully as the figures in the clearing. It was some kind of man. Its arms and legs were contracted as though it were leaping forward and it was red as the water had been. There was hair standing out on all sides of the head as the hair of the old man had stood out when he was enraged or frightened. The face was a daub of clay but the pebbles were there, staring blindly. The old man had taken the teeth from his neck and stuck them in the face and finished them off with the two great cat's teeth from his ears. There was a stick driven into a crack in the creature's breast and to this stick was fastened a strip of hide; and to the other end of the hide was fastened Tanakil.
Fa began to make noises. They were not words and they were not screams. She seized the stick and began to heave but it would not come for the end was furred where Tuami had driven it in. Lok pushed her to one side and pulled but the stick stayed where it was. The red light was lifting from the water and the overhang was full of shadow through which the creature glared with eyes and teeth.
“Pull!"
He swung all his weight on the stick and felt it bend. He lifted his feet, planted them in the figure's red belly and thrust until his muscles ached. The mountain seemed to move and the figure slid so that its arms were about to grasp him. Then the stick whipped out of the crack and he was rolling with it on the ground.
“Bring her quickly." Lok staggered to his feet, picked up Tanakil and ran after Fa along the
terrace. There came a screaming from the figures by the hollow log and a loud bang from the jam. The tree began to move forward and the logs were lumbering about like the legs of a giant. The crumple- faced woman was struggling with Tuami on the rock by the hollow log; she burst free and came running towards Lok. There was movement everywhere, screaming, demoniac activity; the old man was coming across the tumbling logs. He threw something at Fa. Hunters were holding the hollow log against the terrace and the head of the tree with all its weight of branches and wet leaves was drawing along them. The fat woman was lying in the log, the crumpled woman was in it with Tanakil, the old man was tumbling into the back. The boughs crashed and drew along the rock with an agonized squealing. Fa was sitting by the water holding her head. The branches took her. She was moving with them out into the water and the hollow log was free of the rock and drawing away. The tree swung into the current with Fa sitting limply among the branches. Lok began to gibber again. He ran up and down on the terrace. The tree would not be cajoled or persuaded. It moved to the edge of the fall, it swung until it was lying along the lip. The water reared up over the trunk, pushing, the roots were over. The tree hung for a while with the head facing upstream. Slowly the root end sank and the head rose. Then it slid forward soundlessly and dropped over the fall.
The red creature stood on the edge of the terrace and did nothing. The hollow log was a dark spot on the water towards the place where the sun had gone down. The air in the gap was clear and blue and calm. There was no noise at all now except for the fall, for there was no wind and the green sky was clear. The red creature turned to the right and trotted slowly towards the far end of the terrace. Water was cascading down the rocks beyond the terrace from the melting ice in the mountains. The river was high and flat and drowned the edge of the terrace. There were long scars in the earth and rock where the branches of a tree had been dragged past by the water. The red creature came trotting back to a dark hollow in the side of the cliff where there was evidence of occupation. It looked at the other figure, dark now, that grinned down at it from the back of the hollow. Then it turned away and ran through the little passage that joined the terrace to the slope. It halted, peering down at the scars, the abandoned rollers and broken ropes. It turned again, sidled round a shoulder of rock and stood on an almost imperceptible path that ran along the sheer rocks. It began to sidle along the path, crouched, its long arms swinging, touching, almost as firm a support as the legs. It was peering down into the thunderous waters but there was nothing to be seen but the columns of glimmering haze where the water had scooped a bowl out of the rock. It moved faster, broke into a queer loping run that made the head bob up and down and the forearms alternate like the legs of a horse. It stopped at the end of the path and looked down at the long streamers of weed that were moving backwards and forwards under the water. It put up a hand and scratched under its chinless mouth. There was a tree, far away in the gleaming reaches of the river, a tree in leaf that was rolling over and over as the current thrust it towards the sea. The red creature, now grey and blue in the twilight, loped down the slope and dived into the forest. It followed a track broad and scarred as a cart-track, until it came to a clearing by the river beneath a dead tree. It scrambled about by the water, clambered up the tree, peered through the ivy after the tree in the river. Then it came down, raced along a trail that led through the bushes by the river until it came to air arm that broke the trail. Here it paused, then ran to and fro by the water. It seized a great swinging beech bough and lugged it back and forwards until its breathing was fierce and uneven. It ran back to the clearing, began to circle round and between the thorn bushes that had been laid there in heaps. It made no sound. There were stars pricking out and the sky was no longer green, but dark blue. A white owl floated through the clearing to its nest among the trees of the island on the other side of the river. The creature paused and looked down at some smears by what had been a fire.
Now that the sunlight had gone completely, no longer even throwing light into the sky from below the horizon, the moon took over. Shadows began to sharpen, leading from every tree and tangling behind the bushes. The red creature began to sniff round by the fire. Its weight was on its knuckles and it worked with its nose lowered almost to the ground. A water rat returning to the river glimpsed the four legs and flashed sideways under a bush to lie there waiting. The creature stopped between the ashes of the fire and the forest. It shut its eyes, and breathed in quickly. It began to scramble in the earth, its nose always searching. Out of the churned-up earth the right forepaw picked a small, white bone.
It straightened up a little and stood, not looking at the bone but at a spot some distance ahead. It was a strange creature, smallish, and bowed. The legs and thighs were bent and there was a whole thatch of curls on the outside of the legs and the arms. The back was high, and covered over the shoulders with curly hair. Its feet and hands were broad, and flat, the great toe projecting inwards to grip. The square hands hung down to the knees. The head was set slightly forward on the strong neck that seemed to lead straight on to the row of curls under the lip. The mouth was wide and soft and above the curls of the upper lip the great nostrils were flared like wings. There was no bridge to the nose and the moon-shadow of the jutting brow lay just above the tip. The shadows lay most darkly in the caverns above its cheeks and the eyes were invisible in them. Above this again, the brow was a straight line fledged with hair; and above that there was nothing.
The creature stood and the splashes of moonlight stirred over it. The eye-hollows gazed not at the bone but at an invisible point towards the river. Now the right leg began to move. The creature's attention seemed to gather and focus in the leg and the foot began to pick and search in the earth like a hand. The big toe bored and gripped and the toes folded round an object that had been almost completely buried in the churned soil. The foot rose, the leg bent and presented an object to the lowered hand. The head came down a little, the gaze swept inward from that invisible point and regarded what was in the hand. It was a root, old and rotted, worn away at both ends but preserving the exaggerated contours of a female body.
The creature looked again towards the water. Both hands were full, the bar of its brow glistened in the moonlight, over the great caverns where the eyes were hidden.
There was light poured down over the cheek-bones and the wide lips and there was a twist of light caught like a white hair in every curl. But the caverns were dark as though already the whole head was nothing but a skull.
The water rat concluded from the creature's stillness that it was not dangerous. It came with a quick rush from under the bush and began to cross the open space, it forgot the silent figure and searched busily for something to eat.
There was light now in each cavern, lights faint as the starlight reflected in the crystals of a granite cliff. The lights increased, acquired definition, brightened, lay each sparkling at the lower edge of a cavern. Suddenly, noiselessly, the lights became thin crescents, went out, and streaks glistened on each cheek. The lights appeared again, caught among the silvered curls of the beard. They hung, elongated, dropped from curl to curl and gathered al the lowest tip. The streaks on the cheeks pulsed as the drops swam down them, a great drop swelled at the end of a hair of the beard, shivering and bright. It detached itself and fell in a silver flash, striking a withered leaf with a sharp pat. The water rat scurried away and plopped into the river.
Stealthily the moonlight moved the blue shadows. The creature pulled its right foot out of the mire and took a lurching step forward. It staggered in a half-circle until it reached the gap between the thorn bushes where the broad track began. It started to run along the track and it was blue and grey in the moonlight. It went laboriously, slowly, with much bobbing up and down of the head. It limped. When it reached the slope up to the top of the fall it was on all fours.
On the terrace the creature moved faster. It ran to the far end where the water was coming down from the ice in a cascade. It turned, ca
me back, and crept on all fours into the hollow where the other figure was. The creature wrestled with a rock that was lying on a mound of earth but was too weak to move it. At last it gave up and crawled round the hollow by the remains of a fire. It came close to the ashes and lay on its side. It pulled its legs up, knees against the chest. It folded its hands under its cheek and lay still. The twisted and smoothed root lay before its face. It made no noise, but seemed to be growing into the earth, drawing the soft flesh of its body into a contact so close that the movements of pulse and breathing were inhibited.
The Inheritors Page 18