While the rest stayed knee-deep in the greenish water, the six shamans slowly advanced up the hill. They were singing a ritual chant designed to placate The Shimmering Demon. They begged its pardon for treading upon the forbidden ground, but they had to save their ancestors from the terrible blasphemy which the monstrous strangers had caused. They would atone for it by casting the offenders into the demon's mouth. Deyv had to smile at that.
46
HE waited until they were within easy speaking distance. He rose and called, "Holdl"
The shamans stopped, holding their left hands to shade their eyes so they could see him but not the brightness. They were crouching as if they expected some demonic whip to lash down upon their backs.
Deyv lifted the statue of Tsi'kzheep, found it too heavy, and gave it to Sloosh.
"See your ancestor!" he called. "The founding father of the Chaufi'ng! I have cast the ancestors of the other tribes into the gateway to the other world! They are waiting for you to join them so that your people may live forever and worship them forever! If they had stayed here, they would have perished along with their descendants! But we have talked to them and they have seen our wisdom! They agreed to go through the entrance to a better place, and they are getting impatient because you are not there to solace them with sacrifices and prayers! They are becoming angry because you would leave them there while you stay here because of cowardice and let them fade away, unnourished by the blood you once gave them to eat and by your dreams, in which they would come to you and advise you on what you should do to keep the tribe healthy and prosperous and great in war!"
The Shemibob said softly, "That is fine rhetoric, Deyv, but don't get carried away. A few strong words are better than many weak ones."
"I think I'm doing fine," he said with some sharpness.
He gestured at the statue of Tsi'kzheep.
"All but one of your ancestors have gone to that other world and with them the soul eggs of the
Chaufi'ng! Chaufi'ng, if you will have the eggs for the babies to be bom, you will have to go after them!"
"Don't dwell on that point too long," The Shemibob said. "The soul-egg trees of the other tribes are untouched. Stress the ancestors."
"You told me I was to talk to them. Don't interrupt —please!"
It was a frightening yet heady experience to tell The Shemibob to keep quiet. But, though she wasn't in a situation where she could reprimand him, she would probably do so later. If there was a later.
He indicated the statue again.
"Now Tsi'kzheep goes to join the others! And he has told us that he wants you to follow him!"
Sloosh walked out onto the bridge, his eyes closed but his ears open to Deyv's soft instructions. When he heard Deyv tell him to stop, he halted a few feet from the shimmering.
"Now," Deyv said, "lift it up, slowly. Stop! You've got it centered. Now, pitch it straight forward!"
The shamans and the people at the bottom of the hill cried out in horror as the figure disappeared.
Vana said, "If they do go through, they're going to be very angry. There won't be any eggs, which will infuriate the Chaufi'ng, and the other tribes won't have their ancestors. Moreover, if Sloosh is right, there won't be any soul-egg trees either."
"I know that," Deyv said. Then, seized by impulse, he said, "Give me your egg."
"Why?"
He was afraid if he told her, she'd refuse.
"Never mind! Give it to me!"
While she removed the cord from her neck, he took his off. He dangled the eggs high so that all could see them, but he had to wait until the tribes had ceased their uproar before he spoke.
"The ancestors told me many things before they went on their journey! One was that we really don't need our eggs! They had their use in this world, but they're not needed in the next!"
Vana cried, "No, oh, no! Don't!"
"You know they're not necessary," Deyv said fiercely to Vana. "We've both known that for a long time but didn't want to admit it to ourselves. We have to throw them away! Then the tribes won't be so angry when they find that there are no soul-egg trees there."
Then he shouted, "Look! I leave these here!"
He cast the eggs out into the air, and they fell to the base of the tree. Despite his brave words, he felt a pang of loss.
"A very good idea," The Shemibob said. She removed her Emerald and, after Deyv had called everybody's attention to the act, she dropped it onto the ground.
"Now, Archkerri, your prism!
"But it might be useful there! I may be able to speak to the plants there! If s true that they might not have the capability that the plants have here, but I won't know until—!"
"If s necessary, Archkerri! Do it!"
After Sloosh had reluctantly thrown the prism, Deyv cried, "See! The Shemibob and the Archkerri have discarded their magical devices, too! Your ancestors required this as a token of their friendship and good faith!"
"I hope they don't look into the logic of that," Sloosh buzzed.
"They won't," the snake-centaur said. "They're too upset to think straight."
Deyv flung his hands straight up.
"Now! I go to follow your ancestors to a better world!"
He turned with his eyes shut. Following Vana's instructions, which she gave quaveringly, he advanced to the edge of the bridge, stopped, and bent his knees. Though he wanted desperately to turn and walk away, he leaped.
47
HE fell into a bright light, was aware of trees around him and long grass below him, and he landed. His knees bent, he fell, rolled, and was up on his feet. They hurt but not so much that he couldn't walk.
Beyond were the statue and their weapons. Sloosh had cast them as far as he could so the jumpers wouldn't land on them.
He was near the edge of a cliff. If the gateway had been ten feet further to one side, it would have admitted him to a fatal drop to the rocks at the base. Beyond that was a belt of trees and a beach of white sand and a blue sea that sent its rollers thundering onto the land.
In the other direction was a forest populated mostly by tall trees unlike any he'd ever seen. They were conical, and instead of leaves the branches had a heavy needlelike growth.
The sky was blue. Near its zenith was a yellow blaze that was impossible to look at long. It was that that gave the light and the heat.
If what Sloosh and The Shemibob had said a young Earth would look like was correct, he was on a young Earth.
He'd been counting while observing. At one thousand, he stood beneath the gateway and forced himself to look almost directly at it. But it was a dark spot in the air, a strange but undreadful phenomenon, like the gateway in the tunnel. Then Vana shot through, and he jumped to avoid being hit but ready to aid her if she was hurt. She rolled and, like him, came up on her feet.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes. Are you?"
The Shemibob, holding the screaming baby, came through next. Her forty feet flattened out under the impact, and her legs bent far under her weight. But she was unhurt She handed Keem to Vana, saying,
"Here. She knows the difference between my nipple and yours."
Sloosh shot through and landed squarely but still fell forward. He got up complaining that he must have sprained his upper spine.
"We Archkerri are unusually subject to backaches, anyway."
Though he was to move around slowly and carefully for some time, he was not by any means totally incapacitated.
Tsi'kzheep was set up where the next to come through, if there were any, could see it at once. It had been decided that the statue should be kept as a focal point, a rallying and sustaining symbol, for the tribes.