I saw that the people cramming my doorway believed that, no matter what I said. Ava did too, with that mistaken simplicity of logic that says: Dead people are buried underground; Orion has been underground; therefore, Orion has been in the land of the dead.
“Dal,” I whispered urgently. “I must talk to Dal. We’ve got to leave this valley. Quickly!”
“Leave? Why…?”
“There is going to be a flood. We’ll all be drowned if we stay here. Find Dal and bring him here. Now!”
She turned and told one of the men to bring Dal. Looking back at me, Ava said, “Dal was wounded in the fighting three nights ago.”
“Badly?”
“His leg was slashed by a spear, just above the knee.”
Infection, I thought.
“It’s not a very bad wound, but I’ve made him stay on his pallet to rest. I’ve kept the wound covered with leaves and poultice.”
I got to my feet and headed for the doorway. The people melted away from me, almost in a panic. I had been in the land of the dead and then returned. There was fear in their eyes, and a desperate curiosity to know what lay beyond death. Grimly I strode through their midst toward Dal’s hut, thinking to myself that their primitive superstition was truer than they knew: I have been through the land of the dead, more than once.
In the slanting late-afternoon light I could see that the stream cutting through the valley was already broader, noisier, and moving faster than it ever had before. And its direction had reversed. It was flowing from the base of the cliffs out toward the waterfall at the other end of the valley, where the two flows met to form a growing, frothing pool.
Off in the distance I heard a low rumble and felt the ground shudder. All the clanspeople looked toward Ararat’s smoking crest.
“Orion walks and the mountain speaks to him,” I heard a woman say.
The others mumbled agreement.
I said nothing. For the moment, their awe-stricken respect for me was useful; I was going to give them commands that they had to obey swiftly.
Two of the clan’s teen-aged boys were helping Dal to his feet when I stepped into his hut, Ava trailing a step or two behind me. His leg did not seem swollen, beneath the leaves that she had plastered over his wound. Perhaps he would survive, after all.
“Let him sit,” I told them, and they lowered Dal back onto his pallet.
He looked me over in the gloomy shadows inside the hut. “We thought you were dead. But we could not find your body.”
“I am still alive,” I said. “But we will all be killed if we don’t get out of this valley right away.”
Dal winced as if I had slapped his face. “What? Leave the valley? But I thought…”
“There is going to be a flood,” I said. “Soon. Very soon. Perhaps only a few hours from now. It will drown this whole valley and everything in it.”
“But the stream has never…”
“Dal,” I snapped, “have I ever lied to you? There will be a flood. I know! If we stay here, we will all be killed. We must leave. Now! ”
He looked up at Ava.
“There’s no time for argument,” I said. “We must tell all the people, all the clans, and move out now, this hour.”
“Up the steps of the waterfall,” Ava said.
I realized that would be impossible. The first stage of the flood was creating an ever-deepening pool at the base of the waterfall. We could not get out of the valley the way we had come in.
“No,” I said. “We must go up the cliffs along the side of the valley.”
Dal looked shocked. “No one can climb those cliffs!”
“I will show you how to do it,” I said.
“But it can’t be done. We’re only ordinary people; we can’t fly!”
“We can climb,” Ava said firmly. “Orion and I climbed the cliffs one day, more than a month ago.”
He stared at her, began to object, then shook his head. It was more new information than he could take in, I thought. But when he looked down at his leg, stiff and tender from the spear wound, I realized that Dal was worried about his own survival.
A roar of thunder shook the ground. But it did not come from the heavens. The sky to the north flared an angry red, and I could hear fearful moans from the people outside the hut. The volcano was smoldering, preparing to erupt. Ahriman was flexing his muscles.
“There is no time to lose,” I said. “We must leave now.”
With a nod, Dal said, “Go ahead. Ava, you direct the clan. Call the elders in here; I’ll tell them that you will be in charge until they can pick another leader.”
“But you’re coming too!” she said.
He pointed to his wounded leg. “How can I? I couldn’t even climb those cliffs when both my legs were whole.”
I was terribly tempted to agree with him. It would be difficult enough to get more than a hundred men, women and children, none of whom had ever climbed before, to make it safely up the face of the cliffs. A man with a bad leg could slow us down to the point where the flood waters would overtake us before we reached safety. And if Dal stayed behind, I would have Ava to myself once we had put the flood behind us.
My eyes locked on his. He was clearly afraid; he believed me and knew that if he stayed behind he would die. Yet he was willing to sacrifice his life for the safety of his clan. Bravery or stubbornness or just plain stupidity — whatever was driving him, I simply could not leave him there to die.
So I bent down and hauled him to his feet. Moving to the side of his bad leg, I grasped him firmly around the waist.
“Put your arms across my shoulders,” I commanded, “and lean your weight on me.”
“You can’t…”
“Don’t argue with me!” I snapped. “There isn’t enough time.”
Ava beamed at me as we hobbled out of the hut. Dal began shouting orders to the people. Teen-agers were sent scampering off to warn the other clans. Women collected whatever food they could from their huts. Men gathered their tools and weapons.
“The grain!” Ava realized. “What’s going to happen to the grain?”
“It will be swept away by the flood,” I said.
“No!” she said. And she ran off toward the field, gesturing two of the teen-aged girls to come with her.
Ararat grumbled again, making the earth tremble. Hot steam was boiling up from the volcano’s cone now, and I knew that worse would soon follow. The gentle stream that meandered through the valley was rushing and roaring now, already overflowing its banks here and there and edging into the grain field as it burbled the length of the valley and splashed into the lake that was growing at the base of the waterfall. The waterfall itself was angrier, more powerful, pouring an ever-stronger torrent down the stone terraces and into the widening lake. Mist rose from the lake and caught the slanting rays of the dying sun in a diabolically enticing rainbow.
“This way,” I shouted as the people began to gather around Dal and me; they were frightened, confused, casting terrified glances at the angry stream and the angrier volcano.
“Do as Orion commands!” Dal told them. “Only he can save us. Do not anger the spirits of the dead by failing to obey him.”
That calmed them a little. Tell us what to do; give us a direction, lead us — anywhere, just as long as you seem to know what you’re doing. That’s all it takes to stop a frightened crowd from turning into a panic-stricken, self-destructive mob.
We headed toward the cliffs, away from the flooding stream. I hauled Dal along, his weight dragging against me as he hobbled along on his good leg. Over my shoulder I saw the people of the other clans streaming after us, following blindly. But I could not find Ava’s face in the growing crowd.
We made it to the base of the cliffs at last, and I sat Dal down on a rock. Picking two of the wiriest teen-aged boys, I lashed us together with ropes made from vines and took the lead in scrambling up the cliff face. The boys were young enough so that they did not know what was impossible, unlike their elders. They followed me with barely a false step.