Cordelia started to say something placating.
The young man rushed on. "We find it hard to organize effectively in the manner of the Maori in New Zealand. They are great clans. We are small tribes." He smiled humorlessly. "You might say the Maori resemble your aces. We are like the jokers."
"The jokers can organize. There are people of conscience who help them."
"We will not need help from Europeans. The winds are rising-all around the world, just as they are here in the outback. Look at the Indian homeland that is being carved with machetes and bayonets from the American jungle. Consider Africa, Asia, every continent where revolution lives." His voice lifted. "It's time, Cordelia. Even the white Christ recognizes the turning of the great wheel that will groan and move again in little more than a decade. The fires already burn, even if your people do not yet feel the heat."
Do I know him? thought Cordelia. She knew she did not. She had suspected none of this. But within her heart she recognized the truth of what he said. And she did not fear him.
"Murga-muggai and I are not the only children of the fever," said Wyungare. "There are others. There will be many more, I fear. It will cause a difference here. We will make a difference."
Cordelia nodded slightly.
"The whole world is aflame. All of us are burning. Do your Dr. Tachyon and Senator Hartmann and their entire party of touring Europeans know this?" His black eyes stared directly into hers. "Do they truly know what is happening, outside their limited sight in America?"
Cordelia said nothing. No, she thought. Probably not. "I expect they don't."
"Then that is the message you must bear them," said Wyungare.
"I've seen pictures," said Cordelia. "This is Ayers Rock."
"It is Uluru," said Wyungare.
They stared up at the gigantic reddish sandstone monolith. "It's the biggest single rock in the world," said Cordelia. "Thirteen hundred feet up to the top and several miles across."
"It is the place of magic."
"The markings on the side," she said. "They look like the cross section of a brain."
"Only to you. To me they are the markings on the chest of a warrior."
Cordelia looked around. "There should be hundreds of tourists here."
"In the shadow world there are. Here they would be fodder for Murga-muggai."
Cordelia was incredulous. "She eats people?"
"She eats anyone."
"God, I hate spiders." She stopped looking up the cliff. Her neck was getting a crick. "We have to climb this?"
"There is. a slightly gentler trail." He indicated they should walk farther along the base of Uluru.
Cordelia found the sheer mass of the rock astonishing-and something more. She felt an awe that large stones did not ordinarily kindle. It's gotta be magic, she thought.
After a twenty-minute hike Wyungare said, "Here." He reached down. There was another cache of weapons. He picked up a spear, a club-nullanulla, he called it-a flint knife, a boomerang.
"Handy," Cordelia said.
"Magic." With a leather strap Wyungare tied the weapons together. He shouldered the packet and pointed toward the summit of Uluru. "Next stop."
To Cordelia the proposed climb looked no easier than it had at the first site. "You're sure?"
He gestured at her handbag and the H and K. "You should leave those."
She shook her head, surveying first his weapons, then hers. "No way."
Cordelia lay flat on her belly, peering up the rocky slope. Then she looked down. I shouldn't have done that, she thought. It might only have been a few hundred yards, but it was like leaning over an empty elevator shaft. She scrambled for a purchase. The H and K in her left hand didn't help. "Just let it go," said Wyungare, reaching back to secure her free hand.
"We might need it."
"Its power will be slight against the Murga-muggai."
"I'll risk it. When it comes to making magic, I need all the help I can get." She was out of breath. "You're sure this is the easiest ascent?"
"It is the only one. In the shadow world there is a heavy chain fixed to the rock for the first third of this journey. It is an affront to Uluru. Tourists use it to pull themselves up."
"I'd settle for the affront," said Cordelia. "How much farther?"
"Maybe an hour, maybe less. It depends whether Murgamuggai decides to hurl boulders down upon us."
"Oh." She considered that. "Think there's a good chance?"
"She knows we are coming. It depends on her mood."
" I hope she doesn't have PMS."
"Monsters don't bleed," said Wyungare seriously.
They reached the broad, irregular top of Uluru and sat on a flat stone to rest. "Where is she?" said Cordelia.
"If we don't find her, she'll find us. Are you in a hurry?"
"No." Cordelia looked around apprehensively. "What about the Eer-moonans?"
"You killed them all on the shadow plane. There is not an endless supply of such creatures."
Oh, God, thought Cordelia. I killed off an endangered species. She wanted to giggle.
"Got your breath?"
She groaned and got up from the slab.
Wyungare was already up, his face angled at the sky, gauging the temperature and the wind. It was a great deal cooler on top of the rock than it had been on the desert floor. "It is a good day to die," he said.
"You've seen too many movies too." Wyungare grinned.
They trudged along nearly the entire diameter of the top of Uluru before coming to a wide, flat area about a hundred yards across. A sandstone cliff fell away to the desert only a few yards beyond. "This looks promising," said Wyungare. The surface of scoured sandstone was not completely bare. Football-size bits of rock were littered about like grains of sand. "We are very close."
The voice seemed to come from everywhere around them. The words grated like two chunks of sandstone rubbing together. "This is my home."
"It is not your home," said Wyungare. "Uluru is home to us all."
"You have intruded…"
Cordelia looked around apprehensively, seeing nothing other than rock and a few sparse bushes.
"… and will die."
Across the rocky clearing, a sheet of sandstone about ten feet across flipped over, slamming into the surface of Uluru and shattering. Bits of stone sprayed across the area, and Cordelia reflexively stepped back. Wyungare did not move. Murga-muggai, the trap-door spider woman, heaved herself up out of her hole and scrabbled into the open air.
For Cordelia it was like suddenly leaping into her worst nightmares. There were big spiders at home in the bayous, but nothing of this magnitude. Murga-muggai's body was dark brown and shaggy, the size of a Volkswagen. The bulbous body balanced swaying on eight articulated legs. All her limbs were tufted with spiky brown hair.
Glittering faceted eyes surveyed the human interlopers.
A mouth opened wide, papillae moving gently, a clear, viscid liquid dripping down to the sandstone. Mandibles twitched apart.
"Oh, my God," Cordelia said, wanting to take another step backward. Many more steps. She wished to wake up from this dream.
Murga-muggai moved toward them, legs shimmering as they seemed to slip momentarily in and out of phase with reality. To Cordelia it was like watching well-done stopmotion photography.
"Whatever else she is," said Wyungare, "Murga-muggai is a creature of grace and balance. It is her vanity." He unslung the packet of weapons, unwinding the leather strap.
"Your flesh will make a fine lunch, cousins," came the abrasive voice.
"You're no relation of mine," said Cordelia.
Wyungare hefted the boomerang as though considering an experiment, then fluidly hurled it toward Murga-muggai. The honed wooden edge caressed the stiff hairs on top of the spider-creature's abdomen and sighed away into the open sky. The weapon swung around and started to return, but didn't have sufficient altitude to clear the rock. Cordelia heard the boomerang shatter on the stone below Uluru's rim.