The World Above the Sky (34 page)

The Canoe of the Two Hunters had been commandeered by Eugainia and Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk, their eyes bright, their features clearly outlined by a host of lesser stars. Secure in the upturned point of the bow, the spearhead star of destiny, brightest star in the heavens, showed the way.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk directed their passage across the sky. Eugainia bent her back, dug deep, pulling her paddle through stardust. At every pull, new galaxies rose from the gyres they raised and spun off into infinity. Eugainia watched glittering swirls of stars stream away from the bow. She remembered phosphorescent plankton flowing down her lover's chest as he swam upturned beneath her in the warm salt waters of the summer island, Apekwit. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk watched the same star-spirals spin away from the stern. He remembered points of blue green light swirling through his beloved's honey-coloured hair, caressing her breasts, flowing down the long slope of her strong belly, down along her wide white hips, trailing between her legs, dissolving in the familiar sweetness of her own salt sea.

The sky-paddlers approached Great Bear and her fat cub Bear-Child. Assured they meant no harm, the great she-bear rose on her haunches, her twelve defining stars posed not in threat but in greeting. She grunted her permission, and let Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk and Eugainia pass. Bear-Child raised his head and bawled, then watched them speed away. As they approached Aquarius, Mimktawo'qu'sk's words the day of Henry's healing came back to Eugainia:

“Perhaps a flock of birds, as many as the stars, will come and take your men away from the world of L'nuk,” he had said. “A great sleep will overcome them. They will forget the Six Worlds, leave and never return again. All except you, Woman Who Fell in Love with the Moon—my beloved wife and mother of my child.”

Eugainia raised her paddle and nudged Aquaria the Water Bearer's vessel. Stars poured forth from Aquaria's jar in a torrent. The milky way traversed the World Above the Sky, flowed down past Keswalqw on the surface of the moon. Keswalqw laughed with delight as Aquaria's stars tumbled down past her, bound for the Earth World and their role in the drama unfolding below. Keswalqw loved the impulsive woman-child Henry Sinclair had brought The People, loved Eugainia from the day the battered ship appeared in the strait off Claw of Spirit Bird Bay. The day the lives of The People—and those of the visitors —changed forever.

From the stern of the star canoe in the World Above the Sky, Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk echoed Keswalqw's prayer of thanksgiving. Eugainia turned. She glowed with a radiance her husband thought, until this moment, existed only in the realm of dreams.

Aquaria's stars poured down through the Sky World to the Earth World in their hundreds and hundreds and thousands and thousands. As each star hit the earth's atmosphere, its shape began to shift. Rays of light transformed themselves to miniature beating wings. Each star sprouted a head and feathery tail. The flock of little birds from the Sky World formed a cloud so vast it covered the emerging face of Grandfather Sun. The great avian host wheeled as one, angled sharply, and spiralled down through the sky. Like smoke in a gust of wind, or a school of silvery fish bedazzling a predator, their myriad wings beat in unison, their little bodies twisting simultaneously, their iridescent underbellies flashing starlight, evoking the ethereal beauty of the star-beings from which they had come.

Keswalqw plucked three small stones from the moon's dusty surface. She rolled them in her hands. She spoke three words she knew. She opened her palms. The stones became a rattle. She sang a song she knew. She raised the rattle stones above her head. She danced the circle dance.

At the centre of the earth, the core recommenced its slow revolve. Magnetic heat recharged the outer core. The molten mantle which had lain inert until all the players of the great celestial drama were in place churned up toward the earth's crust, where it fell back down to the outer core again, its dynamic rise and fall the perpetual engine of quake and drift. The Earth World bulged from pole to pole and began to revolve again.

The Celestial Canoe bearing the God and Goddess of the Time of the Two Made One began its descent from the World Above the Sky to the Sky World. The star-stone pulsed in the bow.

In the Sky World, the cloud of star birds assumed the shape of a great white-headed eagle. A skree of anger escaped the splayed beak. The left wing of the spirit bird broke free. Its thousand tiny birds assumed an arrow shape and shot toward Henry's new ship
Reconcilio
. The right wing detached from the star-cloud eagle's amorphous body, then formed an arrow that sped toward
Verum
. In their tens of thousands, the bulk of the flock of tiny star birds which had amassed to form the spirit eagle's body, reshaped themselves into a great fiery spear. The bird/spear plunged seaward toward Antonio Zeno's mesmerized fleet.

Their final strokes brought Henry and Athol to within reach of their vessel's side ladders. Agitated little star birds, the size of bumblebees, their chatter urgent, had reached
Verum
first. They grasped every millimetre of sail, every scrap of rope, every banner and fringed flag, every uneven, upraised joint or carved detail upon which their sharp, three-toed little feet could establish a claw-hold. Any handhold hastily grasped would annihilate dozens. When Athol and Henry shook the rope ladders free of the little creatures, the little birds fluttered in place until the men had boarded and then settled back immediately.

Athol snatched a straggler from the air and peered at it. It peered back. The bird's miniature face was more human than avian. Its eyes—one blue, one brown—were pitched forward, set above round, fat, featherless cheeks; its fleshy little nose with wide nostrils replaced the upper half of the beak; the lower half formed a soft-lipped pout of a mouth.

It opened its mouth to speak. It said, “Flee!”

Every graspable surface aboard
Reconcilio
had been claimed, the air gently fanned. Their scent, Henry noted as several little birds settled kindly in his hair and on his shoulders, was a mix of rose and hyacinth. Silent and still, they waited.

Antonio Zeno watched the shore disappear as the chattering cloud of little birds, dense as smoke, swooped down upon him. Latecomers, outraged they found no purchase, fought to dislodge others. The air was thick with protest, their cries shrill. Zeno's men swatted the feathered hordes, afraid for their eyes as the birds swirled about in chaos, clutching at clothes and hair. Their intent, Antonio feared, was to lift him bodily, drop him overboard where a monstrous great whale fish would crush and then drown him or, as with the intractable Jonah, swallow him whole. One persistent creature dove repeatedly for Antonio's eyes. He snatched it from the air. No soft-lipped mouths or nostrils in this flock; hard-edged beaks separated red eyes, bold and piercing. Antonio crushed the angry little bird. It stank of human waste and sulphur. He threw it overboard where it floated, bait to no predator.

Keswalqw rose from the surface of the moon. She sought a vision. None came. Only questions. What would become of them all, The People and visitors alike? Henry's fate was sealed, his conscience clear, his history written. What of Eugainia? Had she been right to encourage Eugainia's bond with Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk? What of Athol? Her marriage to Athol Gunn was no mystery to her or anyone who knew her; she loved the man with all her heart. And he loved her. It was long established in the realms of glory, celestial and temporal, that the immortal great must from time to time take a mortal mate, that god and goddess and woman and man, woman and woman and man and man, must refresh each other, gather and share Power as they walk the universe in search of peace and harmony, on earth, and in heaven. All would be well, Keswalqw hoped. Who better to walk her side than Gelusit tapu. He Who Speaks Twice. Athol Gunn. Her earthy bear man had strength enough to love her and the endurance to abide.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk and Eugainia searched the sky for Keswalqw. Eugainia spotted an unfamiliar star floating above the moon. Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk redirected their course. They bent their backs, redoubling their efforts.

Keswalqw's circle dance devolved into a minimal foot shuffle, head held lightly on the shoulders, tilted slightly to the right. Her arms hung loose, close to her sides. She danced the resting shaman's slow dance in place. What of these puzzling others, she wondered. So unlike Henry and Athol. Antonio Zeno seemed incapable of guilt or shame. Protected by his narrow faith and cold self-interest. Unwavering fealty to the Time of the One Alone blinded even good men, brought pain and sorrow down upon others distant and nearby, all at a terrible cost to their own fearful souls. Yet they are blind to the harm they do. First time I saw him, she recalled, I thought a thought and I was right. Nothing has changed. Antonio
is
Jipijka'maq, the Horned Serpent who conceals himself, uses his Power to frighten and destroy. Like many, Antonio's
Kji-knap
is split: half alive on the earth he seems to fear and deplore, half alive in the hope of heaven. He is two men, this Antonio. Both are weak. How can he speak truth, this serpent man, when he does not seek it? His heart is cold and his tongue is split.

Keswalqw and Garathia, with help from Eugainia and Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk, had it in their power to hurl Zeno and his ilk out past the farther edges of deep oblivion. They also knew it was not to be. Antonio embodied a vast surge of misguided Power, a dark force twisting back upon itself, a profoundly misguided quest for the immortal glory thought to lie beyond human reach. His dark desires drove him to attain life immortal by obliterating paradise apparent, the world in which both he and L'nuk, The People, were born to live. Antonio and his kind existed at the first pulse and would always walk among them. They would shout self in a loud voice and, in a quiet steady tone, they must be answered. Keswalqw knew in her heart of hearts that neither she nor her sister, both sworn enemies of inequity, would hesitate when the lives of those they loved, the weak, the dependant, the poor of spirit—or, for that matter, the powerful good, those rich in mercy, kind of heart, men, women and children honourable in deed and conscience—were threatened. It was their dual nature to nurture and protect. Without a second thought, they would loose fiery arrows and hurl spears of death straight to the murderous hearts of all enemies of the common good. It was their right and duty. It was right they should so do.

Garathia broke the surface off
Reclamation
's stern. She sculled vertically, marking time, awaiting Keswalqw's signal from the World Above the Sky. The second dolphin, waiting to host Keswalqw, circled nearby. No one, Garathia reflected, knew the mind of the Creator as well as she and Keswalqw. Even so, Garathia suspected the supreme power, to which all answered, revealed little. The Great Spirit had little inclination to reveal powers that history showed were more likely to be abused than honoured. Garathia and her sister were its first guardians when
Kji-knap
burst forth at the beginning of time.
Kji-knap
, born in chaos, constantly bloomed anew in the eternal tension between the unity, and dichotomy, of God and man. It was the task of the Great Mothers, with the help of the Two Made One, to balance the forces of creation and destruction, knowledge and doubt, faith and fear. In the mist of a universe forever fading and becoming, mooring posts fall quickly astern. It is the task of all to sail with faith and courage into the grey unknown, setting course toward the random shafts of light which, from time to longed-for time, penetrate the gloom and show the way.

Keswalqw climbed aboard the star canoe, settled herself cross-legged in the mid-section. She tucked the star blanket handed her by Eugainia beneath her chin, tossed its corners back to cover her shoulders. She was happy to have it. She found space to be miserably cold compared with the warmth generated on earth in the eternal dance between the air and Grandfather Sun, whose face Grandmother Moon had at last wiped clean, except for a smudge of crescent shadow trailing off his cheek and chin as the eclipse passed.

Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk aligned their final trajectory. Eugainia shipped her oar. At the bow Eugainia was first to reinhabit flesh and bone. The cold rush of air drew tears from the corners of her eyes. She opened her mouth, threw back her head and inhaled. The thong securing her single braid flew free. Her hair streamed back, a wild tangle of earthly joy and human desire. Keswalqw's hand materialized. She reached, quick as a cat, and caught the flying thong. “Ha!” she cried. She raised both arms in triumph. The star blanket flew from her shoulders and wrapped itself around Mimk
ɨ
tawo'qu'sk's face. It slipped free, taking all but the two stars that burned from that day forward in his bright and shining eyes. He saw as if for the first time the beauty of the women seated before him, women he loved above all things including his own life, women shrieking with joy, their shoulders taut with terror and delight, knuckles white, their hair streaming back, their voices wild and high.

The canoe disappeared into the uppermost peak of a cumulus cloud that welled high in the air above Claw of Spirit Bird Bay. “
E'ee
!” all three cried at the shock of cold, waterlogged air. Their cry reached the Earth World. High in Reconcilio's main mast, a single bird repeated the star-travellers call. Forty thousand times forty thousand miniature wings beat in unison.
Reconcilio
and
Verum
started away at speed unmatched by the strongest wind.