“What?!” I howled, as she heaved herself unsteadily to her feet. “Sparkle! You love me. You said so!”
And I truly believed that I loved Sparkle.
“And you? If loved me, would not go! First Pebble, now Golden? Soon have married all the men. Think Whistler is old enough for next?”
I rose also, trying to explain the angel’s plan, but she would not listen. Soon we had a shouting competition going, while the rest of the tribe watched in horror. I could send another in my place, she said. I was a herdman who did not like his possessions talking back to him. If I really loved her, I would not make wave with all those other women. I must not forget to kiss Surge goodbye—how did she know about Surge?
“And big kiss for Salty, also.” She turned her back on me.
I was supposed to put my arms around her at that point.
I didn’t. Of course she was frightened, and seafolk did not know how to handle fear. Now I see that. Then I did not.
I also was afraid and now ashamed, too. I pushed past sobbing children. I strode away into the surf, without a word and without looking back. I should have been more understanding. I should have explained better, but I did nothing that I should have. Like a petulant child, I just walked away. It would have made no difference in the end, but it is another of the great regrets of my life.
—2—
FRITH WAS A FULL-GROWN MALE NOW, almost as large as Gorf. He had a mate, Pfapff, who came with us, and three or four other great ones kept us company for a while. I carried two water bottles, a knife, and a net. I wore a hat and pagne, and my amulet contained three angel tokens. In my throbbing angry head was a muddled account of the geography, given me by that rawboned, steely-eyed angel.
I hated him.
The great ones were still excited, and I am sure that their discussions were booming to and fro across the ocean. Having to stay near the surface, Frith would not have been able to hear properly, but the others listened to the long-range talk and repeated it to him in their local chatter—or so I believe. I may be wrong, for neither saint nor seaman fully understands the great ones.
I was weary and sunbaked when members of another pod came leaping and spouting to meet me and lead me to one of the other tribes that Brown had mentioned. Their grove had long since vanished, and they camped in cheerfully ramshackle tents on steaming sand by a stream that I noted glumly to be even smaller than ours. There would be no refuge here for us if our water failed.
I was given food and a place to rest. I was not told whose home it was, and I slept alone. I awoke screaming. For the first time since my marriage to Sparkle, I had dreamed of Anubyl beating my mother. I had felt my nails cut into my palms and tasted the blood from my bitten lip.
I refused my hosts’ entreaties to tarry longer. Frith had waited, as I had asked him to, and we continued our journey south with Pfapff at our side. Our other escorts had departed. I did not feel the same lonely terror that I had known before. I was a seaman, Frith was with me, and he would take care of me.
The Great River was easy to find. Even I could smell the difference in the water, and the tussocks of vegetation floating in it were not yet yellowed by excess salt. Most rivers are narrow, short-lived, and drinkable. This one was a moving sea, too wide for both banks to be visible at the same time. Frith and Pfapff seemed excited at the chance to explore a new environment, and they plunged eagerly ahead.
Eventually I grew so tired and hungry that I had to call for a halt. The sun was near to being overhead and there were few shadows, but I asked to be put ashore on some high rocks, and I found a shaded ledge. Soon thereafter Frith put up his head, made his chuckling sound, and threw me a fish that would have fed half the tribe. I ate. I slept. This time I dreamed of Loneliness, and I nearly wept with relief when I awoke and saw that Frith was still there. Had he left me, I should have died very quickly on that barren little island.
Two more sleeps brought me to the mountains and to faster currents. By then my skin was peeling in sheets from the continuous salt and sun, yet I had no alternative but to continue, and I was excited by the sight of the huge hills and the vaster hazy-blue giants raked along the horizon behind them.
With no warning, Frith and Pfapff balked. They swam in circles, chattering furiously, and no signal or word from me would persuade them to go farther. Of course, the words I knew were little closer to their true speech than “Whoa!” is to horse talk. I could tell them what I wanted, but in no way could I explain why it was important.
Important or not, my journey seemed to have ended. I even tried dismounting and swimming in the direction I wanted to go. They let me do so, clattering with amusement as the current swept me backward toward the March Ocean. Only when I was exhausted and sinking did Frith stop laughing and retrieve me.
I asked again and was refused again. Then, just as I was ready to admit defeat, a strange thing happened. A tremor of excitement ran through the great muscular back I straddled. At the same instant Pfapff sounded. I knew from the angle of her tail that she was going deep. Frith sank as low in the water as he could without drowning me and then just drifted, listening.
Of course, I remembered how I had learned of Pebble s death, and I was filled with dread that something bad had happened back at the grove. I felt deep booming sounds from Pfapff. Those I knew to be long-distance talk. Some important message was being passed.
Both great ones surfaced simultaneously, spouting and gibbering. They held a long conversation, but if they were trying to tell me the news, they failed utterly. To my astonishment, however, they then set off against the current at high speed, with me hanging grimly to Frith’s fin and Pfapff leaping exuberantly alongside. Showing no further hesitation, they carried me up the Great River and through the mountains.
Of course, I was perplexed beyond measure at their change of heart. It was much, much later that I received a plausible explanation, and it came from Kettle, a former seaman and by then a saint, great scholar, and senior aide to Gabriel himself. My companions’ initial reluctance to go farther, he suggested, had probably been due to the increasing noise of the river. It would have cut them off from the sounds of the ocean and from the chatter of the other great ones. Then, just as I had concluded that I must abandon my mission, they had learned of the impending disaster.
Brown-yellow-white, the angel who had bewitched me into this folly, was one of two who had survived the journey down the Great River to the March Ocean. The two angels had then split up. Brown had gone north. The other, Two-pink-green, had followed the southern shore, and his efforts had met with success. He had been able to convince one tribe of the imminent danger. They informed their great ones, who immediately passed the news to all the others. Then Frith and Pfapff knew what I was trying to do, more or less. Perhaps they were excited at being pathfinders for the great migration. Perhaps they were even ordered by some central great-one leader to go ahead and explore. Who can say?
The canyon through the Andes Mountains is one of the wonders of the world, and traveling up it on Frith’s back was the most awe-inspiring journey I was to know on all my wanderings. In many places it churned and roared, with waves standing like hills and great whirlpool mouths howling at us impudent wayfarers, seeking to suck us down to our destruction. Repeatedly I was swept off, helpless as froth, and rescued by Pfapff, who was keeping close behind Frith to guard me. The two great ones reveled in the tumult, at times leaping like roos up the cataracts, although at other times even they needed to seek out calmer pools and rest. As for me, I could only hope that they would take my screams of terror to be shouts of joy, or that those went unheard in the violence of the waves.