Motherstone (20 page)

‘Nick, be quiet.’ Dawn was crouching, listening. ‘She’s there. Ahead of us. She’s reached her home. I hear her panting.’

She took the lead. The cave was wider than a street. She led them to the far side, where more hollows were curtained off with rags. A panting, a hoarse whimpering of greed and fear and delight, came from one; and Nick pulled the curtain aside, and there the woman squatted in her hole. She was not old; but sallow, withered, venomous, greasy with the droppings of her food. She glared at them and held her hands tight knotted under her chin. The broken draw-string tangled with the hair falling to her waist.

Nick stepped in and held out his hand. ‘Give them to me.’

She spat at him. Saliva wet his face and he wiped it with his arm. ‘We won’t hurt you. All you’ve got to do is to give them to me.’

‘Easy son, she’ll bite yer,’ Jimmy said.

‘We’ve got to get them. Susan can’t do anything without them.’ He put his hand forward and the woman struck at it with her teeth. ‘The God-stones, the pretty God-stones, they are mine.’

‘They belong to the god,’ Nick said. ‘He sent me for them.’

She did not hear. Her hands were clasped so tightly they would never come apart.

‘Yer won’t get them that way,’ Jimmy said. ‘An’ I don’t feel up ter givin’ her a whack. Out of there, Nick. Me an’ Dawn’ll try the Varg way.’

‘Yes,’ said the Woodlander girl, ‘stand outside. When we give the word, come in slowly and take the Halves.’

Nick backed out of the alcove. Dawn and Jimmy stood one on each side, and the woman fixed her eyes on Jimmy and snarled at him. ‘That’s it, look at me,’ Jimmy said. He lowered his head and swayed it back and forth like a Varg. Then Dawn made a move, sudden, quick, and the woman swung her eyes, snarling again; and Dawn stopped, and set up an easy motion of her head. Jimmy moved … and so it went on, until the woman was mesmerized. Then Dawn whispered, ‘Now, come in slowly, no sudden moves. She won’t see you.’

Nick crouched. He came sidling into the alcove and the woman’s eyes, fixed on Jimmy now, seemed to look through him. He knelt in front of her.

‘Open her fingers. Take the Halves.’

He pulled her arms down like a lever, forced the fingers back one by one, and took the bag, feeling the Halves sliding under the cloth.

‘Now go. Out of sight. She will be crazy when she wakes.’

Nick turned and picked his torch up from the floor. He ran back through the cave and found the crack and edged along it. A shriek of grief and fury came from behind him. Dawn came sliding down the crack. ‘Jimmy has let her go. Hurry, Nick. She will fight like a Bloodcat.’

He came out on the buttress. Down in the throne-hall the cave-dwellers thronged about the light. They blocked his view of the Motherstone, but he saw Aenlocht and Soona, with Susan held between them, and as he started climbing he yelled to her, ‘I’ve got them, Susan. I’ve got the Halves.’ He had no idea how to get them to her. Dawn swung up beside him, and Jimmy scrambled on to the buttress and started climbing. Then the woman burst out. She tore at her face with her nails. Her cry cut through the throne-hall like a cat-shriek. ‘Stones! They have my God-stones. Pretty stones.’ She lunged at Jimmy, missed her grip, and fell wailing to the throne-hall floor.

‘Up yer go, youngker,’ Jimmy yelled. ‘We’re in trouble.’

The priestesses were streaming back from the dome, flowing across the floor like a muddy tide. They lapped about the base of the buttress, and some began to claw their way up.

Jimmy stood beside Nick and Dawn. ‘I can hold ‘em. They gotter come one at a time. But I dunno how yer gunner get them doodahs down to Susie.’

Nick looked at the dome. The three in the light might as well be miles away. But he saw Susan’s face as though she stood in front of him, and read the grief on it, and knew he must not fail. There was no way to get through that mad throng. They would tear him to pieces. But there must be some trick he could think of, some bit of cunning. ‘Use yer loaf.’ Had Jimmy spoken or did he dream it? He saw Thief standing in front of Susan, lashing his tail – and suddenly he had it: he would call someone the women would never catch.

He reached down by his feet and found a stone. He stood up straight, shielding it in his hand, and thrust his fist out. ‘Here they are,’ he cried, ‘here are the God-stones. You can have them.’ He swung back his arm and hurled it away, far out to the left of the dome. The cave-dwellers ran after it. Some of those on the buttress tumbled off. He waited until the way was clear, and yelled to Susan, ‘Now. Send Thief,’ and sensed that Dawn was calling silently, calling the cat.

Thief burst from the dome. He crossed the bones in one stride and came through the throne-hall like a sun-flare. Nick waited. The bag must not fall on stone. He waited until Thief was below the buttress. Then he held his arm out and let the Halves drop.

Susan saw them fall and saw Thief catch them in his mouth. Then she lost sight of him as the women boiled back and closed him in. But she knew nothing would stop him. She saw the flash of red as he leaped. He went a quarter way up the buttress and propelled himself out, all in one motion, and twisted in the air, and came down clear of them, and loped round the rush they made, out to the side of the dome, and started in.

‘It will burn him,’ Soona cried.

‘He has the Halves. It will welcome him.’

He bounded over the bone-pit, put his head in, seemed to grin, with the draw-string trailing from his jaws.

‘Thank you, Thief. In you come, quick.’

She took the bag. She did not look at the cave-dwellers again, but smiled at Soona sadly, and at Aenlocht. ‘Are you ready?’

They nodded, did not speak. She tipped the Halves into her palm, hearing the drawn breath of the two who must hold them. She put the lighter Half on the Mark on her wrist, and quickly, deftly, set the other beside it. She felt a tingling, an itching, but ignored it. The Halves came to life: one burning gold, the other red. Their radiance made a light about her brighter than the light that bathed them all.

Slowly she put her arm out, offered it. ‘Soona. Aenlocht.’ They seemed blind. Their hands were clasped, her right in his left. They were trying to be brave, but Soona had to whisper, ‘Will it hurt?’

‘No, Soona. No pain of that sort.’

They took the Halves, did not choose, each took the nearer one. And gasped. And swayed.

‘Hold them now. Keep them safe. I do the next part.’

Distant shouts came from outside. She paid no more heed to them than sounds in another street. She turned and faced the Motherstone. Thief came to her side and she was glad. She touched him on the head. Then she reached out for the Halves – the old ones, returned there in the time of Otis Claw. They were fused in the rock, making a circle, red in one part, gold in the other. Neither seemed more strong or had more life than the other. There was no sign that in the human struggle evil had won. In any case, she had no time to consider that. She wanted just to do what she must do, so Soona and Aenlocht should not wait.

She laid two fingertips on the Halves, and saw the thread of light run round the edge, and through the S dividing them. They were unfused, freed from the Motherstone. She picked them up and held them in her hand.

There was a kind of sighing in the throne-hall, a rustling as the cave-dwellers sank on their knees, turned on their sides, sank in sleep. All about the dome of light they lay, and Susan knew that part of it was done: in the north, on the plateau, the armies slept, Widd and Osro, Stilgo, Kenno, Limpy – Hotlanders, townsmen, ex-priests. The Weapons were standing with no one to use them. Except for Soona and Aenlocht, and the three from Earth, all of Humankind on O were sleeping. And they would sleep until Halves, old or new, were placed on the Motherstone – or until they died. But death was not a part of Freeman Wells’ plan.

Susan fumbled with the bag. She put the Halves inside. She did not know what she would do with them. She felt a pain like betrayal when Thief padded from her side and stood with Soona and Aenlocht. But that was right. She had done her part. The rest was theirs, O was theirs. She stepped slowly back to the edge of the light.

Soona and Aenlocht approached the Motherstone. She could not find a word for where they were going. It was not death. Yet it was a kind of death she watched.

Tears ran on Soona’s cheeks. Aenlocht’s face was twisted with fear. She saw how white their hands grew with the strength of their clasp.

‘Goodbye, Susan,’ Soona said.

Her voice choked as she answered, ‘Goodbye, Soona. Goodbye, Aenlocht.’

They placed the Halves. The thread of light ran round, ran through; and Soona and Aenlocht fell to the ground. They curled up in a ball, legs and arms clenched to their bodies, faces still. They slept, or were in a kind of death.

How long they lay, Susan could not tell. She knew that she had clambered out of the dome, and crossed the bones, and time had passed. She had crouched with Dawn and Jimmy and Nick at the foot of the buttress. Perhaps she had eaten food, she did not know. Now they were back at the light. Nick was holding her.

‘Are they waking up?’

‘Yes. They’re moving.’

‘They won’t be anyone we know.’

All about, the cave-dwellers were stirring. And in the light the fishergirl, the Hotlander boy, uncoiled from where they had fallen, and climbed to their knees. They opened their eyes and looked about, and wailed with terror at the strangeness of the place they found themselves in.

‘The armies are dispersing,’ Yellowclaw said. ‘They have laid down swords and spears and they drift away in groups, north and south.’

‘They do not know what swords and spears are for,’ Silverwing said.

‘What about the Weapon?’

‘Two Weapons. They sit there on the plain, facing each other. Widd went round to take Osro on the side. But Osro saw. The turret was coming about. I cannot say who would have fired first. Now – they sit there. Woodlanders dismantle them. Birds will fly the parts to a cave, and Stonefolk will take them down to the Deepest Place. That will be the end of the Weapon.’

‘Did you find Limpy and Kenno?’ Susan asked.

‘Yes. Still chained. We freed them. Some instinct draws them south.’

‘They’ll go to Stonehaven. But what will they do there? They won’t know what boats are for.’

‘They’ll survive,’ Dawn said. ‘Woodlanders will watch over them. Humankind will be our children.’

They’ll be growing up for hundreds of thousands of years,’ Nick said. He remembered the bodiless voice of Freeman Wells. ‘For aeons.’

‘He’s made a place for them to rest in, Nick. He’s given them a chance to beat the swamp beast.’

‘I suppose so.’ He looked at Soona and Aenlocht, walking ahead on the forest path, with Thief between them. ‘They don’t remember who they were.’

‘That was the price. They were chosen – but they chose.’

‘Soona knew where she was going,’ Susan said.

‘She’s not really Soona any more.’

‘No, she’s not.’

‘She’s – primitive. At least in her mind. Neanderthal.’

‘That’s just a word. They’re children again, that’s all we can say.’

‘Yer gettin’ morbid,’ Jimmy said. ‘They’re bloddy lucky ter be alive. All of us is lucky.’

‘The Birdfolk will help them,’ Silverwing said. ‘Woodlanders will help. And Stonefolk too. All the Folk.’

‘Just leave ’em alone. They’ll make their own way. Let’s ’ave some grub.’

They had come out of the throne-hall, out of the city, up into Wildwood. It had taken six days. They travelled slowly, keeping watch on Soona and Aenlocht. They had to be taught the simplest things, how to wash, how to dress. They seemed to think clothes were a part of themselves and fought against having them taken off – and once they were off, would not put them on. Simple implements they understood: a stick for poking, a stone for scratching. Their language was a grunt, an exclamation. Soona’s face was pale and beautiful, but her eyes lit up only with the simplest understandings. Inside, she was – Nick looked for a way of saying it – back with the monkeys. He had to struggle not to draw away. At night she and Aenlocht slept in the ferns. He supposed they would start having children soon. That was a good thing – a new generation. That was the start of the long climb back. He hoped when they got there it would be something different, otherwise all this was a waste of time.

But when he climbed a hill and looked at Wildwood and saw the trees stretching to the sea and the mountains rising, he knew it had been no waste. O was saved. He began to feel that Soona and Aenlocht, Osro and Widd, had been very lucky. They had a second chance. He began to wonder if he really wanted to go back to Earth.

They followed the Sweetwater. Jimmy and Dawn and the Varg would turn south at the foot of the mountains. Nick had no idea what Soona and Aenlocht meant to do. He wasn’t sure they could think of tomorrow. As for Thief, he was a mystery. Nick kept well out of his way.

‘Is Thief still your friend?’

‘Not so much now,’ Susan said. ‘I’m not really part of O any more.’

‘Will he stay with Soona and Aenlocht?’

‘I don’t think so. He’s too wild. He’ll go to the Hotlands. But I think he’ll remember. He knows what they did. He’ll come back and see them now and then.’

‘Will they stay in one place?’

‘No, they’re nomads. They’ll wander. Maybe up north, Aenlocht’s land. Or down to Stonehaven. Places will draw them, but they won’t stay. It’ll be thousands of years before humans learn to have homes.’ She smiled at him. ‘But I know a place they’ll come to now and then.’

They went into the foothills. The mountains climbed in steps into the sky; and it was time for Jimmy and Dawn to turn south.

‘Don’t go startin’ anything, young Susie. This time I’m not comin’ back.’

‘There’ll be no one hiding in the cave.’

‘Better not be. I wanter put me feet up fer a while. I reckon I’ve earned it.’

‘You have, Jimmy …’

‘No waterworks, eh. We had some hairy times, an’ some good times. You an’ me an’ young Nick here. Let’s just think about them now an’ then.’

‘Yes. All right.’