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CHAPTER 10

~*' They covered themselves with mud to guard against burns and the flies already gathering, and began to dig. Akiva worked beside the giant strangers. When he found the tall woman's body, he touched one of them on the shoulder. In this way he chanced to see what those who did not know him were to call the only tear Tiyar Kituman ever shed.

Inside one of the underground chambers, a grey-eyed boy kicked Akiva's hand so hard it turned crimson, but he felt nothing. "Don't be afraid," he said, moving back toward the earthen wall.

"We're dead," the boy told him.

"No. You are alive."

"How do you know?"

Akiva leaned back. The earth was hot. "There is no death but to forget Ayekar," he breathed. Aloud, he said, "I know because no one feels pain after death. Now come out."

The boy sat down and pulled his legs up to his chest. His eyes narrowed. "Leave me alone. Everybody's dead."

Akiva left him there.

He carried the wounded children to the unplowed field where a woman ghost had everyone set them in rows. She washed them and covered the dead while a peasant witch and the blond-haired one crept slowly along the rows, treating the uncovered ones with alien medicines. Those dead too big to carry were the charge of his own followers, who dragged them down to the Lir, while those alive were brought to the medicine ground by the biggest of the ghosts and some local men with stretchers.

Those who seemed about to die were left to Akiva. Most lay below ground in the caverns discovered by the blaze. Strips of red cloth tied to rocks and vines marked their presence for him. He picked his way from one to the next, preparing arguments in his mind to encourage them.

Few rebuked fate or the gods, though. It might have been that they did not recognize him. They said their wounds hurt, told him secrets and charged him with messages to friends and family, so many that he had already begun to forget them when he climbed out of one hole to look for the next.

Many spoke of love. One, whose eyes were sealed shut, recalled, "She was forty years old when I met her. She was taking her daughters to be married. She smiled at me--the smile of Fea Listening. I never knew her name."

Another said, "With Father Akiva you find kindness, wisdom and religion. Outside is superstition, ignorance and cruelty. He came to the village with the little boy on his shoulders. I told my grown son, here is the lost Verloring with little Fey. He is truly homeless...he dwells in the heart."

Some still believed they were in the holy city. A youngster whose leg had been torn off sighed, "I knew he would lead us to Ayekar, but not like this."

An old woman burned deeply on one side shrieked at the blond-haired stranger, "It's a lie!"

The herbalist knelt beside her, whispering, "Yes, it was a lie."

The old woman rolled her eyes and went on talking in a hollow voice, now high and now deep as though a variety of spirits were calling from inside her. "It's a lie. There were no sparrows. It was our triumph. A woman god bore Fey with the help of women. It was our mothers birthed the laughing god. Sparrows! They lie."

The herbalist cradled the woman's shoulders. Akiva thought she was finished and stretched out his hand to bless her despite her minor heresies, but the old one started up and gave him a fierce look. "Hell-gods rule creation!" she gasped. "We--only we--we only--" She fainted.

The herbalist murmured, "We knew Ayekar in the generations of light. Only we remember. False priests will never free the gods, it must be we only."

Akiva walked away. She must know what she said when she denied the sparrows. They were divine grace, the emissaries of Hath to Fea's childbed. To hear the old woman, feeling the touch of hell on her own body, attest that its gods ruled creation, made him sick.

It was evening. Akiva shuddered as a cool breeze ruffled his tunic. He went to the campfire to put fresh salve over the burns on his chest. Everyone there was silent. Some wept. Neshar came to lie in Akiva's lap. He was covered with grass, dirt and blood.

"Am I bad?" he asked.

Akiva held him close, despite the burns, and kissed him. "No."

"Everybody is hurting," Neshar whispered.

"Yes."

"Are you hurting, Akiva?"

"Yes." He caressed the boy's hair, crumbling the dirt out of the strands. Orange, he thought. Yellow and orange, not only in the firelight, but also by day. Tears spattered Neshar's cheeks.

Manitey sat down beside them, groaning. "Do you know what's happened?" he asked.

"Hell-gods--" Akiva shut his mouth. The flames leapt. A mass of insects seemed to be creeping over his body, but when he looked down, there were none. He jumped to his feet, too quickly, and fell in a rush of sparks.

He heard a rustling noise. A black cloud was floating toward him. It was a crowd of bats flying up from the caverns. They came and came, blackening the night, more than he had thought existed. The rush of their wings made a wind that carried the smell of burnt flesh and ashes with them. Then he saw in his vision what had driven them out. Water rose around his ankles to his knees and hips.

The woman herbalist's face appeared between the bats' wings and disappeared as the water closed over his head. The stars wavered and ran together. The bats dived like fish. They surrounded him.

A pair of hands emerged from among the winged fish. It was Shis, the hand of fate. Akiva grasped them and they jerked back, but he had caught the wrists and he held fast.

"Tell me!" he insisted. He pulled the hands close, seeking the god's head. Eyes came near. Looking into them, he saw fire. "Tell me!" he shouted. "And--tell me why." He wanted to look at the god's face, but the eyes held his gaze.

The winged fish gripped him and raised him out of the water, above the forest. He looked down on treetops now dancing and now still, leaves black or moonlit where they turned their undersides. The Lir ran smoothly to the ocean from its origin beneath the Weeping Moon. As Akiva watched, the teardrops turned to fire and the Lir began to burn.

Earth shuddered. Fire overran the mountains. He covered his ears, but shrill screams assailed him. His teeth rang with them. Suddenly the fish dropped him.

His body whistled through the air. The impact of landing seemed to break his spine. The stone he had brought from Itscriye landed an arm's length from himself. It had been eaten away by worms.

Tiyar sat at his head, Manitey at his feet. Someone had taken Neshar to bed.

"The Itscriye stone," he whispered.

"Father Akiva--" Tiyar began.

"He says we ought to get away," Manitey put in.

"There will be more fire," Tiyar went on.

"Winged demons," Akiva said.

"--their power is so great that they have made themselves invisible--"

"Rest now," said Manitey. "Tomorrow...will you make us spirit dolls?"

"We must raise all the people of the world against them," Tiyar declared.

"He says there'll be more fire."

Akiva shook his head. "I know. I know all that. The demons and the terrors--the wings and claws of darkness...where is the stone?"

Someone brought it. The stone was warm and damp like a clump of silage. They had left it near the fire and had to douse it when it was called for. Tiyar hefted it. "What is this?" he asked.

"Vengance." Akiva sat up. Manitey helped him stand. "The grub of evil."

"Not to avenge the past but to--" Tiyar began.

Akiva staggered. Manitey clasped his arm, the woman herbalist caught the other. Still with us, he thought. Maybe the witch would follow him. He had no precedent for forbidding her.

"You said, regain Ayekar," Manitey whispered.

"Ayekar." He sagged between them. "Let me go." He held up the stone. "This thing is too heavy for me to carry to Ayekar," he told the crowd.

Their confused whispers and mutterings reached him like a groan. "It weighs us down," he said.

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CONTINUE.....................

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