She was not in oestrus, to Joshua’s great relief. As he made his careful way up the cliff face he was pleased not to have the distraction of his own singing blood.
They reached the top of the cliff. Here they found a shrub laden with bright yellow fruit, and they sat side by side at the cliff’s edge, plucking the fruit, their broad feet dangling in the air. They gazed out in silence towards the east, and the sea.
The sun was still rising, and its light glimmered from the sea’s steel-grey, wrinkled hide. The distinct curve of the world was reflected in layers of scattered purple clouds which hovered over the sea. Joshua could see the grassy plain where he lived, sweeping towards the ocean, terminating in dune fields and pale sand. Near the squat brown shape of the hut itself, people moved to and fro, tiny and clear. He followed streams, shining lines of silver that led towards the sea.
A small group of antelopes picked their way through the morning grass. One of them looked up, as if staring directly at him.
Joshua felt himself dissolve, out from the centre of his head, to the periphery of the world. There was no barrier around him, no layer of interpretation or analogy or nostalgia; for now he was the plain and the sea and the clouds, and he was the slim doe that looked up at the cliff, just as he was the stocky, quiet man who gazed down from it. For a time he was immersed in the world’s beauty in a way no human could have shared.
Then, by unspoken consent, Joshua and Mary folded their legs under them and stood. Side by side, they walked into the forest that crowded close to the cliff.
The green dark was a strong contrast to the bright sea vista. It was not a comfortable place to be.
Washed by the salty air off the sea, the forest was chill, thick with a clammy moisture that settled into Joshua’s bones. And as they penetrated deeper the ground was covered in a tangled mass of roots, branches, leaves and moss, so that in some places Joshua couldn’t see the actual surface at all. He slipped, stumbled and crashed over the undergrowth, making a huge amount of noise.
Mary started to shiver and complain, growing increasingly fearful. But Joshua pulled his skin wraps tighter around him and shoved his way deeper into the forest.
A shadow slid through the wood, just a little way ahead, utterly silent.
Joshua and Mary both froze. Joshua bunched his fists. Was it a Zealot?
The shadow slowed to a halt, and Joshua made out a squat, stocky body, with short legs and immensely long arms, the whole covered by a dark brown layer of hair. A hand reached out and grabbed a bamboo tree. The tree was pulled down until it cracked, and drawn towards a gaping mouth.
It was a Nutcracker-man. Joshua relaxed.
Mary stumbled closer to Joshua, making a cracking noise.
The Nutcracker-man turned his great head with its sculpted skull ridge and giant cheekbones. Perhaps he saw them; if he did he showed no concern. He pulled his bamboo towards his mouth and bit sideways at the trunk, seeking the pithy interior. As he chewed, the heavy muscles that worked his jaw expanded and contracted, making his entire head move.
Though slow and foolish and easily trapped, the Nutcrackers” muscles made them formidable opponents. But the Nutcrackers rarely ventured from their forests, and when they did they showed no instinct for aggression against the Hams. Likewise the Hams did not eat people. The two kinds of people had little in common and nothing to fight about, and simply avoided each other.
After a short time the Nutcracker-man finished his bamboo. He slid effortlessly away into the green, placing his hands and feet slowly and methodically, but he moved rapidly and almost noiselessly, soon outstripping any effort Joshua might have made to catch him.
Out of curiosity Joshua and Mary tried the bamboo. It took both of them to crack a trunk as thick as the one the Nutcracker had pulled over with one hand, and when he tried to bite into it Joshua’s teeth slid off the trunk’s glossy casing.
They moved deeper into the forest. The sun, showing in glittering fragments through the dense canopy, was now high. But Joshua caught occasional glimpses of the sea, and he kept it to his right, so that he knew he was working roughly the way the floating black and white seed had fallen. Mary kept close behind him. Her biceps showed, hard and massive, beneath the tight skins wrapped around her arms.
And now there was another shadow passing through the forest ahead. But this time there was much more noise. Maybe it was a bear, careless of who or what heard it. They both crouched down in a dense patch of tangled branches, and peered out fearfully.
The shadow was small, even slender.
It was just a man, and a feeble-looking man at that, with nothing like the bulk of a Ham, still less a Nutcracker. He was a Skinny: surely a Zealot. He wore skins wrapped closely around his limbs and torso, and he carried a length of bamboo tube. His face was covered by an ugly mass of black beard, and he was muttering to himself as he blundered noisily through the forest.
With some care he selected a broad-trunked tree. He sat down beneath it. He reached into his trousers to scratch his testicles, and emitted a long, luxurious fart. Then he raised the bamboo to his lips. To Joshua’s astonishment, a foamy liquid gushed from the bamboo into the man’s mouth. “Up your arse, Praisegod Michael.” He raised the flask, and drank again. Soon he began to wail. “There is a lady, sweet and kind…”
Mary clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing. The Zealot was squealing like a sickly child.
Joshua was fascinated by the bamboo flask, by the way the murky liquid poured out into the man’s mouth and down his bearded chin.
The Zealot finished off the contents of his flask. He settled further back against his tree trunk, tucking his arms into his sleeves. He had a broad-rimmed hat on his head, and as he reclined it tipped down over his eyes, hiding his face. His mouth popped open, and soon rattling snores issued from it.
Joshua and Mary crept forward until they stood over the sleeping Zealot. Joshua bent to pick up the bamboo. He tipped it upside down. A little foamy fluid dripped onto his palm. He licked it curiously. The taste was sour, but seemed to fill his head with sharpness.
He inspected the bamboo more closely. Its end had been stopped by a plug of wood, and a loop of leather attached another plug that, with some experimentation, Joshua managed to fit into the open end of the tube, sealing it. Joshua’s people carried their water in their hands, or sometimes plaited leaves or hollowed-out fruit. Though they would have been capable of it, it had never occurred to them to make anything like the Zealot’s bamboo flask.
Mary, meanwhile, was crouching over the Zealot. She was studying his clothing. Joshua saw that it had been cut from finely treated skin. The skin had been heavily modified, with whorls and zigzag lines and crosses scratched into it and coloured with some white mineral. The edges of the various pieces of skin had been punctured. Then a length of vegetable twine had been pushed through the puncture holes, to hold the bits of skin together. Mary picked at the seams and hems with her blunt fingers; she had never seen anything like it.
Joshua found the patterns on the skins deeply disturbing. He had seen their like before, on other Zealot artefacts. To Joshua the patterns made by the markings were at the limit of his awareness, neither there nor not there, flickering like ghosts between the rooms of his mind.
Now Mary’s searching fingers found something dangling around the man’s neck on a piece of thread. It was a bit of bone, that was all, but it had been shaped, more finely than Abel’s best tools.
Joshua studied the bone. Suddenly a man surged out of the carving: his face contorted, his hands outstretched, and his chest ripped open to reveal his heart.
Joshua screamed. He grabbed the bit of bone and yanked it so the thread around the Skinny’s neck broke, and he hurled it away into the forest.