West of January (15 page)

“They can do that? Really talk?”

She shrugged. “Sometimes works, sometimes not. Is difficult because don’t have real words. Also, often don’t want to talk—”

A head rose from the sea. It was Wheen, a female, Sparkle said. Apparently Pebble had won the argument, and it was to be done the way he wanted. He waved his hands to beat time. Then Blossoms began a string of deep booms, Sand made clicking notes in the midrange, and Pebble himself shrilled squeals in a painfully high falsetto. It was melody, not speech.

I could see fins and dark surges farther out, where other great ones flowed up to the surface to steal glimpses of the activity and blow plumes of spray.

The recital ended, Pebble rubbing his throat as if it hurt. Wheen snorted and responded with a roll of deep thunder beneath high clicking. The men tried again and were drenched for their pains. Wheen vanished, as if in contempt. Another great one—larger and closer—put his head up. It was Gorf again, Sparkle said.

The singers tried their harmony once more; Gorf’s reply was longer and more complicated. The audience began muttering querulously.

Sparkle was frowning. “Think says no river flowing out of this sea. Is one running in.”

Old Behold shouted from somewhere, “Flows out! Think not remember? Was long, hard, upstream.” A couple of the older folk agreed loudly.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “My angel did not say which way it ran.”

Pebble and Sand and Blossoms, intently conferring about their next message, were suddenly catapulted into the air as a great one jostled the platform beneath their feet. All three disappeared into the sea with ungainly splashes. The human audience yelled with laughter, and a few of the great ones raised their heads to make rude chattering noises. Then one of the largest of the males reared up with Pebble in his mouth. I cried out in horror.

“Is all right,” Sparkle insisted beside me. “Will not eat him.”

Up…up…rose the monster, only the upper half of Pebble visible. He was yelling and laughing and beating his fists on the huge snout. At the top of the leap, he was released with a motion halfway between tossing and spitting. He went spinning through the air, cartwheeling and still shouting. At the last moment he straightened and slid into the water without a splash. The great one balanced on his tail for a moment, then toppled backward to vanish in an explosion of spray. The sea-tree grove heaved and swayed.

Two more of the great beasts had emerged, bearing riders. Clutching the giant dorsal fins, Sand and Blossoms were being carried off into the distance in great bounding arcs, faster than a horse could gallop. I thought it must feel like riding a roo.

Then Pebble reappeared, this time upside down, head and arms and chest inside the great one’s mouth, legs kicking. Again he was lifted high and flipped even farther into the sky. Again he straightened before he hit the water. I was horrified by the dangers—if he fell badly he could break his back. It was a ridiculous game.

Then everyone was playing it. Men and women, youths and girls, all streamed off the platform to sport with the great ones, until only a few old folk and mothers with babies remained. The mossy shelf reemerged as the load decreased. I watched this mass insanity in rank disbelief. Any one of the great ones probably outweighed half of the seafolk, yet they were all mixed in there together in one mad watery roughhouse, sea and sky full of people and leaping sea monsters.

Then Pebble and another man were thrown skyward simultaneously, arching over a group of swimmers and narrowly missing each other. I shuddered and averted my eyes. An arm slid around me.

“Is foolish, yes?” said a tallish, young, close lady.

“Oh yes,” I agreed. “I’ve, ah—I didn’t catch your name?”

She moved even closer, smiling dazzling teeth and moist red lips. “Am Misty.”

“Am Raindrops,” said another voice, and another arm came around from the other side. Shorter and slightly plumper.

“Was first!” Misty said crossly. “Need rest now, Golden.”

I put my arms around both of them while I pondered. The mad romp was still proceeding with no sign of end or caution. Now that Misty had mentioned it, I realized that I was indeed staggering with fatigue.

“I do need rest,” I agreed.

“My bower!” Misty said.

Raindrops would likely have argued, but I spotted a kiss on her mouth before she could speak. “Yours next time,” I promised.

“Oh yes,” she said breathlessly, and I went off with my arm around Misty.

Apparently I had a real knack for making friends.

─♦─

Later I came to know the great ones better, although I could never join in their play as enthusiastically as the seafolk did, and I never quite understood the relationship between them. Many other peoples train animals and use them, as my father rode his horses. Some beasts, like woollies, are used but never trained. But no other people claim to talk with their livestock, as the seafolk do.

The great ones were not confined or tethered. They seemed to gain little from their association with humans except grooming, for the seamen cleaned parasites from their hides. Yet in return they carried the seamen on their backs to hunt fish, they towed boats, they caught seals or retrieved them, and they indulged in those wild watery romps. Indeed, the great ones usually seemed to initiate the play, so I had to assume that they enjoyed the sport as much as the human participants. That raised a question that worried me greatly—who was master and who was pet?

In Heaven I discussed the great ones many times with Saint Kettle. He had been born a seaman and he looked it—a massive, jocular tub of a man, with a coronet of snowy curls around a bald pate. He was also wise and learned, and I pressed him often to tell me how well he thought the seafolk could truly converse with the great ones. He would never quite commit himself.

“Are they intelligent, then?” I asked him once.

“The great ones? Of course they’re intelligent!” Then he sighed and added quietly, “But I’m none too sure about seafolk.”

—2—

T
HE GROVE FLOATED IN THE MOUTH
of a wide bay between two ranges of hills that ran down into the sea to become islands. At about the time I arrived, the trees rooted themselves to avoid being washed ashore. There was some discussion among the seafolk over this, for they felt happier when their home was mobile. They could have cut the longest roots and then asked the great ones to tow the grove back into deeper water, but nothing was decided, and soon there were too many tethers in place to bother with. It was a pleasant location, all agreed, with a good stream of fresh water nearby. The watervines were not quite adequate, and even seafolk like to wash off the salt sometimes.

As he had promised, Pebble taught me to swim, although almost any child was better at it than I ever became. Then he took me hunting and taught me that also, riding on the backs of the great ones.

The procedure was simple. The hunter took net or spear to the water’s edge and sang his name. Only rarely was there no quick response. It was also possible to sing the name of a particular great one, but he would not always come to such a summons, even if he was in the neighborhood. Usually Pebble rode Gorf. I was never sure whether Gorf was his favorite or he was Gorf’s—probably the latter, for I was adopted by a young male named Frith, who came to my voice more often than any of the others did. He was very patient with my beginner’s shortcomings, but I soon learned the clicking sound that represented laughter.

Eventually the great ones persuaded us that the river I sought lay not far off to the south, and it flowed into the ocean, not out of it as the old folk had expected. A raft or a boat was what I needed, everyone agreed. A raft was easier, so a raft it must be. Driftwood tree trunks were not uncommon, and I began gathering them, with Frith’s assistance, and laying them on the beach to dry out.

I learned to hunt, which was a male occupation, although some men did nothing more than trawl a net. With the great ones’ help, one man could easily have fed the whole tribe.

Pebble’s idea of hunting was nothing like that. The harder the chase, the better the taste, in his view. He even claimed to be fond of oysters, which contain nothing but bland slime. Collecting those was a terrifying business involving diving very deep while tied to rocks; therefore oysters were mostly a test of manhood. I hated diving for oysters. I hated being battered black and blue in a mad pursuit of sunfish, or crawling through underwater caves that might contain all sorts of stabbing, munching monsters.

Pebble seemed to be totally without fear. He must have known of my innate cowardice, but he never mentioned it. He would tell me in vivid detail what horror he had planned for me next, demonstrate how an expert like him could survive it, and then just grin, daring me to try. I’m sure my teeth were visibly chattering with terror many times, my knees knocking, but I would always try to bluff my way through somehow, and Pebble would then pretend to look impressed. It was very childish, really.

Worst of all, perhaps, were the snarks. A snark looks something like a marine woollie, padding madly around on the surface. It is indifferent eating, and it comes armed with deadly pincers and stinging tentacles by the hundred. Given the choice, I would not have gone into the same ocean as a snark, but whenever the great ones reported a snark in the neighborhood, Pebble would insist on organizing a snark hunt.

Spears go right though snarks without effect. The only way to catch one is to put a rope around it and tow it to shore. The only way to put a rope around a snark is to leap over it onboard a great one. And the only way to survive getting that close to a snark is to first run the monster to exhaustion. This needed every rider we could enlist. The great ones seemed to enjoy the romp also—why not? The stings did not affect them! Vigorous splashing alarmed the quarry, so the great ones drove it with their roo-like bounding gait, which was terrifying for a beginner who could not swim well. But I must admit, that snark hunt did have a certain exhilaration to it—a dozen or more great ones, all with riders, arching and leaping over the sea, herding the foaming patch of water where the snark thrashed around, plunging in close when it began to tire, seeing who would be the first to dare try the jump and place the rope. That man was the hero of the hunt, of course. Yes, it was insanity and the stings hurt like hell, but I admit I never turned down an invitation to hunt snark.

And all this I owed to Pebble. Endlessly joyful and willing, brave and gentle without limit, he was the first friend I had ever known. The very idea of friendship was alien to a herdman, and Pebble had to start by teaching me that. He never had a mean thought in his life, Pebble. He was my first friend and the best I would ever have. And in the end, I killed him.

─♦─

Fortunately Violet had warned me that not everyone venerated the Father God of the herdfolk. The seafolk’s deity is the Sea Mother. She is generous and undemanding, asking little of her people. I learned her joyful hymns and tossed small offerings into the water as the seafolk did, and no thunderbolt came to roast my bones. Yet when I was out of earshot of the others, I sang to the Heavenly Father, also—though quietly—just to be sure.

Mathematics was not one of my greater talents, yet I could see that the tribe had fewer children than my father had sired with a mere four women. At first I wondered if the sea was prowled by some marine equivalent of roos, a predator that could carry off youngsters, but then I noticed the absence of pregnancies. The birthrate was at fault, therefore. I assumed that this was due to the fish diet. Certainly I often yearned for red meat.

Company I never had to yearn for. I had only to smile and I would be invited into a bower to rest. Seawomen had very energetic ideas of what resting involved. Even some of the knot-on-the-right wives were not above fluttering eyelashes in my direction. Having unlimited choice available elsewhere, I politely ignored such improper suggestions.

I had innumerable friends, both male and female; I had food and comfort without limit; I had the thrill of hunting and the satisfaction of mastering new skills. What more could a man want?

─♦─

Well, Sparkle for one thing.

And Heaven for another.

How foolish is youth! In the midst of every comfort and satisfaction a man could possibly desire, my ambition to be an angel still niggled at me like an unreachable itch. I had promised Violet I would meet him in Heaven. I had promised myself! I was still young enough to believe I could make the world a better place, and my conscience scolded me for tarrying when I should be hurrying. Of course, I didn’t know it was my conscience speaking: I thought it was the Father God.

I was a welcome guest at all the feasting places, rewarding my host with the gift of my catch, when I had one, and with my herdfolk songs. The best melodies I knew were hymns that might have offended the Sea Mother, but my knack for inventing doggerel let me put new words to the old tunes. Young and old, the seafolk loved to laugh, and they liked nothing better than hearing some trivial incident of their commonplace lives turned into a satirical ballad, especially if the victim was known to be within earshot. Often the end of my song would be greeted with laughter and applause pouring in through the walls all around. Then I would have to repeat the song, again and again, until the whole tribe had memorized it and was chorusing in complex harmony. The victim usually sang along as heartily as any.

And eventually I would be lured away to a bower to rest.

I have never thought of myself as clever, yet I cannot imagine why I was so stupid as to miss what those young ladies really wanted. My enlightenment came suddenly, at a
big
feast.

Feasts were commonplace. A
big
feast was a special event, involving the whole tribe. No normal eating place could hold everyone at the same time, but the copse happened to have a large natural clearing in the middle that served very well, although it was an odd shape. A
big
feast was held in someone’s honor—and if there was no one who deserved honoring, an excuse could always be found to honor someone anyway. The first I attended had been dedicated to Surge, to celebrate a proposal of marriage from young Sand. All the other unwed maidens were looking very long-faced, for no other boys seemed about to start developing mustaches and related qualifications.