Nation

CHAPTER 10 Believing Is Seeing

THE CAVE WAS WAITING. It might contain anything, Mau thought. And that was the point, wasn’t it? You had to find out. You had to know. And Daphne didn’t seem concerned. Mau told her that there would probably be bones, and she said that was fine, because bones didn’t try to kill you, and that since she had got the message from the Grandmothers, she was going to see it through, thank you so very much.

They found the Grandfathers right at the point where you could just see the waning daylight, and Mau began to understand. They weren’t scary, they were just… sad. Some of them still sat as they had been put, with their knees up under their chins, staring toward the distant light with flat dead eyes. They were just husks and crumbled bones. If you looked carefully, you could see that they had been held together with papervine. It really did have many uses, even after death.

They stopped when the daylight was a little dot at the end of the tunnel.

“How many more can there be?” Ataba wondered.

“I’m counting,” said Mau. “There’s more than a hundred of them so far.”

“One hundred and two,” said Daphne. There seemed to be no end to them, sitting one behind the other like the world’s oldest rowing crew, sculling into eternity. Some of them still had their spears or clubs, tied to their arms.

They went on, and the light vanished. The dead passed in their hundreds and Daphne lost count. She kept reminding herself how scared she wasn’t. After all, hadn’t she quite enjoyed that lecture on anatomy she had attended? Even though she had kept her eyes shut throughout?

However, if you were going to look at hundreds and thousands of dead men, it didn’t help to see the light from Ataba’s lamp flicker over them. It seemed to make them move. And they had been men of the islands; she could see, on ancient, leathery skin, blurred tattoos, like the ones every man — well, every man except Mau — wore even now. A wave, curling across the face of the setting sun…

“How long have you been putting people in here?” she asked.

“Forever,” said Mau, running on ahead. “And they came from the other islands, too!”

“Are you tired, sir?” said Daphne to Ataba, when they were left alone.

“Not at all, girl.”

“Your breathing does not sound good.”

“That is my affair. It is not yours.”

“I was just… concerned, that’s all.”

“I would be obliged if you would stop being concerned,” Ataba snapped. “I know what is happening. It starts with knives and cooking pots, and suddenly we belong to the trousermen, yes, and you send priests and our souls do not belong to us.”

“I’m not doing anything like that!”

“And when your father comes in his big boat? What will happen to us then?”

“I… don’t know,” said Daphne, which was better than telling the truth. We do tend to stick flags in places, she had to admit it herself. We do it almost absentmindedly, as though it’s a sort of chore.

“Hah, you fall silent,” said the priest. “You are a good child, the women say, and you do good things, but the difference between the trousermen and the Raiders is that sooner or later the cannibals go away!”

“That’s a terrible thing to say!” said Daphne hotly. “We don’t eat people!”

“There are different ways to eat people, girl, and you are clever, oh yes, clever enough to know it. And sometimes the people don’t realize it’s happened until they hear the belch!”

“Come quickly!” That was Mau, whose lamp was a faint green glow in the distance.

Daphne ran to stop Ataba from seeing her face. Her father, well, he was a decent man but, well, this century was a game of empires, apparently, and no little island was allowed to belong to itself. What would Mau do if someone stuck a flag on his beach?

There he was now, looking green, and pointing to the line of Grandfathers.

As she got closer, she saw the white stone on the edge of the passage. There was a Grandfather sitting on it like a chieftain, but with his hands clasped around his knees like the rest. And he was facing down the corridor, away from the cave mouth, toward the unknown.

In front of him the line of dead warriors continued, all now turned to face… what? The light of day was behind them now.

Mau was waiting, a glint in his eye, when Ataba hobbled up. “Do you know why they are facing the wrong way, Ataba?” he asked.

“They look as though they are protecting us from something,” said the priest.

“Down here? From what? There’s nothing down here but darkness.”

“And something best forgotten, perhaps? Do you think the wave never happened before? And the last time it never went away. It was a wave that never ebbed. It ended the world.”

“That’s just a story. I remember my mother telling it to me,” said Mau. “Everyone knows it: ‘In the Time When Things Were Otherwise and the Moon Was Different… Men were becoming troublesome, and so Imo swept them away with a great wave.’”

“Was there an ark? I mean, er, some sort of big boat?” asked Daphne. “I mean, how did anyone survive?”

“There were people on the sea and high ground,” said Mau. “That’s the story, isn’t it, Ataba?”

“What had they done that was so bad?” Daphne asked.

Ataba cleared his throat. “It is said they tried to make themselves into gods,” he said.

“That’s right.” Mau went on: “I wonder if you can tell me what we did wrong this time?”

Ataba hesitated.

Mau did not, and he spoke sharp and fast, like a spring unwinding: “I am talking about my father, my mother, my whole family, my whole Nation! They all died! I had a sister who was seven years old. Just give me the reason. There must have been a reason! Why did the gods let them die? I found a little baby stuck in a tree. How had it offended the gods?”

“We are small. We cannot understand the nature of the gods,” said Ataba.

“No! You don’t believe that — I can hear it in your voice! I don’t understand the nature of a bird, but I can watch it and listen to it and learn about it. Don’t you do this with the gods? Where are the rules? What did we do wrong? Tell me!”

“I don’t know! Don’t you think I haven’t asked them?” Tears started to roll down Ataba’s cheeks. “You think I am a man alone? I haven’t seen my daughter or her children since the wave. Do you hear what I say? It is not all about you! I envy your rage, demon boy. It fills you up! It feeds you, gives you strength. But the rest of us listen for the certainty, and there is nothing. Yet in our heads we know there must be… something, some reason, some pattern, some order, so we call upon the silent gods, because they are better than the darkness. That is it, boy. I have no answers for you.”

“Then I’ll look for them in the darkness,” said Mau, holding up the lantern. “Come farther with us,” he said in a quieter voice.

The light glistened off the tears streaming down the priest’s face. “No,” he said hoarsely.

“We’ll have to leave you here,” said Mau. “Among the dead men, which I think is no place for you. Or you can come with us. At least you’ll have a demon and a ghost on your side. We may need your wisdom, too.”

To Daphne’s surprise, the old man smiled. “You think I have some left?”

“Certainly. Shall we continue? What can you find that is worse than me?”

“I’d like to ask a question,” said Daphne quickly. “How often is a new Grandfather put in here, please?”

“Once or twice in fifty years,” said Ataba.

“There are thousands here. Are you sure?”

“This place has been here since the world was made, and so have we,” said Mau.

“On that, at least, we are in full agreement,” said Ataba stoutly.

“But that’s a very long time ago!”

“And that is why there are so many Grandfathers!” said Mau. “It’s very simple.”

“Yes,” said Daphne, “when you put it like that, I suppose it is.” They set off, and then she said: “What was that noise?”

They stopped, and this time they all heard the faint crackling and rustling from behind them.

“Are the dead rising?” asked Ataba.

“You know, I really hoped nobody was going to suggest that,” said Daphne.

Mau walked a few steps back along the cave, which was full of tiny crackling sounds. The dead don’t walk, he thought. That’s one of the ways you know they are dead. So what I’m doing is standing here, a long way from the sky, and I have to work out what they are doing. So what is the reason? And where have I heard this noise before?

He walked a little way farther up the tunnel, where there was no noise at all, and waited. After a while, the crackling started again, and he thought of sunshine on hot days. It was crackling where he had left the others, too. “Let’s keep going,” he said, “and it will stop, provided we keep moving.”

“They won’t wake up?” said Ataba.

“It’s the papervine bindings on the Grandfathers,” Mau said. “Even when it’s bone-dry, it crackles and pops when it’s warmed up. The heat of the lamps and our bodies sets it off if we stay in one place too long. That’s all it is.”

“Well, it was frightening me,” said Daphne. “Well done. Deductive reasoning based on observation and experiment.”

Mau ignored that, because he didn’t have the faintest idea what it meant. But he felt pleased. The Grandfathers didn’t wake up. The noise he had heard as a boy was just papervine getting hotter or colder. That was true, and he could prove it. It wasn’t hard to work out, so why is it all I can do not to wet myself? Because papervine moving doesn’t sound interesting and walking skeletons does, that’s why. Somehow they make us feel more important. Even our fears make us feel important, because we fear that we might not be.

He watched Ataba move close to a Grandfather, then step back hurriedly when it began to creak.

My body is a coward but I am not fearful. I will fear nothing, ever, he thought. Not now.

There was a glow ahead. It appeared suddenly as they walked around a long curve — red, yellow, and green, flickering as they got closer. Ataba groaned and stopped walking, and because he did that, Mau knew he couldn’t. He looked down the slope ahead.

“Stay and look after the old man,” he said to the ghost girl. “I don’t want him to run away.”

I will not fear my bladder that wants to explode, he told himself as he sped down past the silent sentries, or my feet that want to turn and flee, and I will not fear the pictures that are running, screaming, through my head. He ran on, the light racing ahead of him, repeating the vow until, like Captain Roberts, he found it necessary to change the words in a hurry. I will not fear the shadow that is walking out of the pretty light, because I have found my fear down here in the dark, and I shall reach out and touch him as he reaches out to touch me….

His fingers met his reflection and touched smooth golden metal, in a slab about the size of a man.

Mau put his ear to it, but there was no sound. When he pushed it, it didn’t move.

“I want you to stay where you are,” he told the others when they caught up to him. “Both of you. We’ve come down a long way. There may be water on the other side of this.”

He prodded at the metal with his crowbar. It was very soft and also very thick, but the stone around it was the ordinary island stone, and that seemed a better bet. It soon started to flake away under blows from the pointed end of the bar, and after some work there was a hiss and the smell of wet salt. So the sea was somewhere near, but at least they were above it.

He called the others down and hacked at the stone again, amazed at how easily he could crack it with the metal bar, opening up a gap into blackness. It was damp; he could hear a soft lapping of water in the dark. By the light of the lamp he could just make out some white steps, leading down.

So that was it? All this way for some sea cave? There were a lot of them at the bottom of the cliffs on the western side of the island. Kids had explored them since time began, and had never found anything to get excited about.

But the lamplight glinted on something in the dark.

“I’m going to come in with you,” said Daphne behind him.

“No. Stay here. It might be dangerous.”

“Yes, and that’s why I ought to go in with you.”

“It’s been shut up since forever! What’s going to hurt me?”

“What? You were the one who said it might be dangerous!” Daphne said.

“I will enter first,” said Ataba behind her. “If Locaha is in there, I will take his hand.”

“I’m not going to wait out here with all these dead men crackling at me!” Daphne protested. “Yes, I know it’s just the vines but that really doesn’t help.”

The three of them looked at one another in the lamplight and then, as one, tried to get through the narrow gap into a space full of bad air. It tasted rotten, if air could rot.

The steps beyond were god stones, every one. They had carvings on them, just like the ones on the beach, but many of the carvings went across several stones. Here and there, stones were cracked or missing.

Lumps of stone, thought Mau. Why did we think they were worthy things to worship? He held the lamp higher and saw the reason.

Ahead of him, knee-deep in the water, gigantic and gleaming white and sparkling all over, were the gods — the huge-stomached Air with his four sons on his shoulders, the brilliant Water, the ferocious Fire, with his hands bound to his side just as the story said. Air and Water each held a big stone globe in their hands, but Fire’s globe was balanced on his head and had a red glitter to it. There was a fourth statue, pale and smashed, with no head and one arm fallen down into the water. For a moment Mau thought: That’s Imo. Broken. Would I dare to find His face?

Ataba screamed (and outside in the tunnel a dead man moved slightly). “Do you see them? Do you see them?” the priest managed, in between great gasps of sour air. “Behold the gods, demon boy!” He bent double with a fit of coughing. It definitely was not good air; you sucked it down, but there was no life in it.

“Yes, I see them,” said Mau. “Gods of stone, Ataba.”

“Why should they be of flesh? And what stone shines like that? I am right, demon boy, in my faith I am right! You can’t deny it!”

“I can’t deny what I see, but I can question what it is,” said Mau as the old man wheezed again.

Mau looked across the darkness, to the glow of light that was Daphne’s lantern.

“Let’s get back right now!” he shouted. “Come on! Even the flames are choking!”

“Those are just statues!” Daphne called back. “But this… this is amazing!”

There was the grinding noise of stone moving from somewhere near her.

Ataba was wheezing horribly. It sounded as though every breath was being sawn out of a tree.

Mau looked at the flickering flame of his lantern and yelled, “We must get back!”

“And there’s a skeleton here!” Daphne called out. “And he’s got — I don’t believe this. Oh, you must see this! You must see what he’s got in his mouth!”

“Do you want to run back up the tunnel in the dark?” he shouted as loudly as he could (and outside in the corridor, a Grandfather shifted).

That seemed to do it. He saw her lamp begin to move toward the door. She was panting when she reached him, and the light was a dark orange.

“You know, I thought all this could be Greek,” she said, “or Egyptian! That we trousermen… well, togamen, I suppose — ”

“So we even begged our gods from your people, too?” snapped Mau, putting an arm around the priest’s shoulders.

“What? No! It’s more — ”

Mau pulled her after him through the narrow gap. “No more talking!” he said. “Now, come on!”

The on! echoed up and down the corridor. The ancient and oldest Grandfather beside Mau fell over backward with a little click, and then crumbled into powder and strips of dry papervine, but not before it had tipped over the one behind it….

They watched in horror as the line of toppling, crumbling Grandfathers overtook the lamplight, filling the air with cloying, acrid dust.

They looked at one another and made an immediate and group decision.

“Run!”

Dragging the stumbling old man between them, they dashed up the gentle slope. The dust stung their eyes and clawed at their throats, but around the fortieth collapsing skeleton they overtook the cascading bones. They didn’t bother to stop; the dust behind them was almost a solid, billowing mass, as keen to escape as they were. And they ran on, into better air, until the noise died away.

Daphne was surprised when Mau slowed down, but he pointed to the white stone that stuck out of the wall, with the hunched Grandfather on it.

“We can rest for a moment,” he said. “That one’s too high to be pushed over.”

He propped up Ataba, whose breathing almost rattled. But the priest was smiling, even so.

“I saw the gods,” he panted, “and you did, too, Mau.”

“Thank you,” said Mau.

Ataba looked puzzled. “For what?”

“Not calling me demon boy.”

“Ah, I can be generous in victory.”

“They were made of stone,” said Mau.

“Magic stone! The milk of the world! Have you ever seen so much of it? What human hand could carve it? What mind could imagine them? They are a sign. In the heart of darkness, I have found illumination! I was right!”

“They were stone,” said Mau patiently. “Did you not see the slabs on the floor? There are your god stones! They were made to tread on! They fell into the sea, and you think they are holy!”

“A man in darkness may be misled, it’s true. But in the stones we saw a hint of the truth. The gods made you their tool, boy. You scorned them and spurned them, but the faster you ran from them, the closer you came to them. You — ”

“We ought to move,” said Daphne to a distant background of crashing bones. “Even if they can’t get closer, that dust can. Move, I said!”

They obeyed, as wise men do when a woman puts her foot down, and went on along the tunnel at the best speed that Ataba could hobble.

But Daphne hesitated. The crashing tide of Grandfathers was nearly at the stone and, yes, it should be able to stop them, but Mau had sounded too confident, which to her mind meant that even he was not all that certain. He didn’t need to stop, but Ataba was suffering. He actually cares about the old man, she thought. A demon wouldn’t —

Crash… The tumbling bones hit the stone and stopped.

At least, all but one did.

It was probably a rib, she thought later. It sprang out of the mess and into the air like a salmon, and hit the skull of the Grandfather who was perched on the stone; he rocked backward and fell onto the skeleton on the other side of the stone, which fell over.

And that was it, like a trick with dominoes. Crash, crash, crash… the floor was more level here, and the bones rolled faster. Why hadn’t she been expecting something like this? The Grandfathers had been stuck in this moldy cave forever. They wanted to get out!

She ran after the men, before the dust rose. She’d heard that when you took a breath, you breathed in a tiny, tiny amount of everyone who had ever lived, but, she decided, there was no need to do it all at once.

“Run again!” she yelled.

They were already turning to look. Daphne grabbed the old man’s other arm and used him to tow Mau until they had got all six legs sorted out.

The entrance was a little white dot again, a long way off, and after only a few steps Ataba was groaning.

“Leave the lamps here,” panted Mau. “We don’t need them now. I’m going to carry him!”

He scooped up the priest and slung him over his back.

They ran. The dot didn’t seem to get bigger. No one looked back. There was no point. All you could do was face the speck of day and run until your legs screamed.

They only looked at the god statues, thought Daphne, trying to keep her mind off what was crashing down behind them. They should have looked at the walls! But of course they wouldn’t have known what they were looking at! It’s lucky I’m here… in a way.

Something crunched under her foot. She risked a quick glance down and saw little bits of bone bouncing along, overtaking her.

“They’re right behind us!”

“I know,” said Mau. “Run faster!”

“I can’t. The dust is going to get me!”

“Does not happen! Give me your hand!” Mau shifted the weight of the old priest on his back and grabbed her hand, almost jerking her off her feet. Mau’s legs were pounding across the rock as if driven by steam. All she could do was kick at the ground whenever it came near, to stop herself being dragged along it.

Now the circle of daylight was getting closer, and after having been so tiny for so long, it was opening fast. The ancient dust, which stung the skin and choked the throat, ran ahead of them across the ceiling, cutting out the daylight.

— they burst into evening sunlight, suddenly and intensely bright after the gloom of the tunnel. It dazzled the eyes, and Daphne felt herself begin to stumble into the sea of white that had taken the place of the world. Mau must have been blinded too, because he let go of her. There was nothing for it but to put her arms over her head and hope for a soft place to fall.

She staggered and folded up, while the dust of the Grandfathers, free after thousands of years, escaped at last on the wind, streaming away across the mountain.

It would have been nice if she’d heard thousands of little voices fading away as the cloud of dust was scattered to the wind, but to her regret she didn’t. Reality so often fails when it comes to small, satisfying details, she thought.

She could hear people now, and her sight was coming back. She could make out the ground in front of her as she carefully pushed herself up.

The dry, dusty grass crackled softly and someone walked into her view.

There were boots! Big sturdy boots with tight laces, caked with sand and salt! And above the boots, there were trousers! Real, heavy trouserman trousers! She said he would come and he had! Just in time, too!

She stood up, and the shock hit her like a shovel.

“Well, well, your ladyship, here’s a stroke of luck,” said the man, grinning at her. “So the ol’ Judy fetched up here, eh? Who’d have thought the ol’ bugger could manage it. Didn’t do him any good, I see, bein’ as it’s his hat I do see on that darkie’s head. What happened to the old fool? Ate him, did they? And never said no grace aforehand, too, I have no doubt. I bet that made him wild!”

Foxlip! Not the worst of the mutineers, but that didn’t mean much because he had two pistols in his belt, and they don’t care who pulls the trigger.

Most of the islanders were in the clearing. They must have led the men up here. Why shouldn’t they? She’d been saying for weeks that her father would find her. Most of them had probably never even seen a trouserman before.

“Where’s your friend, Mr. Foxlip? Is Mr. Polegrave with you?” she asked, managing a smile.

“Right here, miss,” said a hoarse voice.

She shuddered. Polegrave! And where she could not see him, which was even worse. He’d sidled up behind her, as was his way, the sneaky little worm.

“And will we be joined by Mr. Cox?” she asked, trying to hold on to the smile.

Foxlip looked around the little valley. He was counting people; she could see his lips moving.

“Him? I shot ’im,” said Foxlip.

Liar, she thought. You wouldn’t dare. You’re not that brave. You’re not even that stupid. If you missed, he’d have cut your heart out. Good heavens, a couple of months ago I wouldn’t have been able to even think a sentence like that. How broad can horizons get?

“Well done, you,” she said.

Her thoughts tumbled through her head. Two men with pistols. And they’d fire them, too. If she said the wrong thing, someone would get killed. She had to get them away from here — get them away and remind them that she was valuable to them.

“My father will pay you a great deal if you get me to Port Mercia, Mr. Foxlip,” she said.

“Oh, I daresay there will be a lot of payin’ one way or another, yes, I daresay,” said Foxlip, looking around again. “There’s ways and ways, oh yes. So you’re the queen of the savages, are you? One white girl, all by yourself. Terrible shame. I bet you could do with a bit o’ civilized company, such as might be provided by a pair of gentlemen such as us — well, I say us, but o’ course Mr. Polegrave here does indulge in the questionable habit o’ wiping his boogers on his sleeve, but bishops have been known to do worse.”

And, later on, she thought, It could still have worked if it hadn’t been for Ataba.

He’d seen the gods, in the darkness underground. And now he was spinning with the holy memory. He was out of breath and confused, but he had seen the gods, and all uncertainty had been blown away with the dust of history. They were made of stone, indeed, but they had gleamed in their hidden home, and he was sure they had spoken to him, told him that everything he believed was true, and that in this new world he would be their prophet, delivered out of the darkness on the burning wings of certainty.

And there were… trousermen! The bringers of all that was bad! They were a disease that weakened the soul! They brought steel and beef and infernal devices, which made people lazy and stupid! But now the holy fire had filled him, just in time.

They all heard him scream ancient curses and march across the clearing with his knees clicking loudly. Daphne barely understood any of it. The words tumbled out on top of one another, fighting to be heard. Who knew what his blazing eyes were really seeing as he snatched a spear from a young man and waved it menacingly at Foxlip —

— who shot him dead.