The sound went on, like something solid, smashing into the air and breaking it. It filled the whole of the sky. For Mau it was like a giant slap on the ears. He tried to paddle faster, and then the thought rose in his mind: Animals flee. His father had told him so. Boys flee. A man does not flee. He turns to look at his enemy, to watch what he does and find his weakness.
Mau let the canoe slide out of the lagoon and easily rode the surf into the ocean, and then he looked around, like a man.
The horizon was one great cloud, boiling and climbing, full of fire and lightning and growling like a nightmare.
A wave crashed in the coral, and that was wrong too. Mau knew the sea, and there was also something wrong with that. The Boys’ Island was falling way behind him, because a terrible current was dragging him toward the great bag of storms. It was as if the horizon was drinking the sea.
Men looked at their enemy, yes, but sometimes they turned around and paddled like mad.
It made no difference. The sea was sliding and then, suddenly, was dancing again, like the water in the lagoon. Mau, trying to think straight, fought to get the canoe under control.
He’d get back. Of course he would. He could see the picture in his head, small and clear. He turned it around, savoring the taste of it.
Everyone would be there. Everyone. There could be no exceptions. Old, sick men would prefer to die on mats at the water’s edge rather than not be there; women would give birth there if they had to, while watching for the homecoming canoe. It was unthinkable to miss the arrival of a new man. That would bring down terrible bad luck on the whole Nation.
His father would be watching for him at the edge of the reef, and they’d bring the canoe up the beach, and his uncles would come running, and the new young men would rush to congratulate him, and the boys he’d left behind would be envious, and his mother and the other women would start on the feast, and there would be the… thing with the sharp knife, where you didn’t scream, and then… there would be everything.
And if he could just hold it in his mind, then it would be so. There was a shining silver thread connecting him to that future. It would work like a god anchor, which stopped the gods from wandering away.
Gods, that was it! This was coming from the Gods’ Island. It was over the horizon and you couldn’t see it even from here, but the old men said it had roared, back in the long ago, and there had been rough water and a lot of smoke and thunder because the Fire god was angry. Maybe he’d gotten angry again.
The cloud was reaching up to the top of the sky, but there was something new down at sea level. It was a dark gray line, getting bigger. A wave? Well, he knew about waves. You attacked them before they attacked you. He’d learned how to play with them. Don’t let them tumble you. Use them. Waves were easy.
But this one was not acting like the normal waves at the mouth of the reef. It seemed as though it was standing still.
He stared at it and realized what he was seeing. It looked as if it was standing still because it was a big wave a long way off, and it was moving very fast, dragging black night behind it.
Very fast, and not so far away now. Not a wave, either. It was too big. It was a mountain of water, with lightning dancing along the top, and it was rushing, and it was roaring, and it scooped up the canoe like a fly.
Soaring up into the towering, foaming curve of the wave, Mau thrust the paddle under the vines that held the outrigger and grabbed on as —
It rained. It was a heavy, muddy rain, full of ash and sadness. Mau awoke from dreams of roast pork and cheering men, and opened his eyes under a gray sky.
Then he was sick.
The canoe rocked gently in the swell while he added, in a small way, to what was already floating there — bits of wood, leaves, fish….
Cooked fish?
Mau paddled over to a large hehe fish, which he managed to drag aboard. It had been boiled, right enough, and it was a feast.
He needed a feast. He ached everywhere. One side of his head was sticky with, as it turned out, blood. At some point he must have hit it on the side of the canoe, which wasn’t surprising. The ride through the wave was an ear-banging, chest-burning memory, the kind of dream you are happy to wake up from. All he’d been able to do was hold on.
There had been a tunnel in the water, like a moving cave of air in the roll of the giant wave, and then there had been a storm of surf as the canoe came out of the water like a dolphin. He would swear it had leaped in the air. And there had been singing! He’d heard it for just a few seconds, while the canoe raced down the back of the wave. It must have been a god, or maybe a demon… or maybe it was just what you hear in your head as you half fly and half drown, in a world where water and air are changing places every second. But it was over now, and the sea that had tried to kill him was about to give him dinner.
The fish was good. He could feel the warmth entering his bones. There were plenty more, bobbing with all the other stuff. There were a few young coconuts, and he drank the milk gratefully and began to cheer up. This would be a story to tell! And a wave that big must have washed up at home, so they’d know he wasn’t lying.
And home was… where? He couldn’t see the Boys’ Island. He couldn’t see the sky. There were no islands. But one horizon was lighter than the other. The sun was setting over there somewhere. Last night he’d watched the sun set over the Nation. That had to be the way. He set out steadily, watching that pale horizon.
There were birds everywhere, perching on anything that floated. Mostly they were little finches, chattering madly as the canoe went past. Some of them even fluttered over and perched on the canoe itself, huddling together and staring at him with a sort of desperate, terrified optimism. One even perched on his head.
While he was tying to untangle it from his hair, there was a thump as something much heavier landed on the stern of the canoe, causing the finches to scatter and then flutter back because they were too tired to make it to anywhere else. But they kept as far away as possible from the new passenger, because it wasn’t particular about who it ate.
It was a big bird, with shiny blue-black feathers and a white chest, and little white feathers covering its legs. Its huge beak, though, was brilliant red and yellow.
It was a grandfather bird, and good luck — to people at least — even if it did slow Mau down and eat one of his fish. Grandfather birds had learned not to be frightened of people; it was bad luck even to shoosh one away. He could feel its beady eyes on the back of his neck as he paddled onward. He hoped it might be lucky. If he had some luck, he could be home long before midnight.
There was an Erk! as the grandfather bird took off again with another of Mau’s boiled fish in its beak, making the canoe wallow for a moment. Well, at least I’m a bit lighter, Mau thought. It’s not as though I need the fish in any case. I’ll be filling up with pork tonight!
The bird landed heavily on a log a little way ahead. Quite a large log, in fact. As he drew nearer, Mau saw that it was a whole tree, even with its roots, although a lot of its branches had been torn off.
He saw the axe, tangled, rising out of the water. But part of him already knew he was going to see it. The sight of it raced toward his eyes and became, just for a moment, the center of the turning world.
The grandfather bird, having juggled the fish so that it could swallow it whole, took off in its gloomy is-this-really-worth-it? way and flapped with its big, slow wings nearly touching the scummy water.
With its weight gone, the tree started to roll back. But Mau was already in the water and caught the axe handle as it was pulled under. Holding his breath, he braced his legs against the tree’s trunk and tugged. Oh, he’d been clever, hadn’t he, that moment a hundred years ago now, slamming the axe hard into the tree to show the next boy what a big man he was….