The Old Wise One nodded and said, “I will show you.” Then looking down he coughed into his hands and held them out to Sandwalker.
Sandwalker tried to see what it was he held, but sisterworld was shining brightly now and the Old Wise One’s hands were cobweb. There was something—a dark mass—but though he bent close Sandwalker could see nothing more, and when he tried to touch what the Old Wise One held, his fingers passed through the hands as well as what they contained, making him feel suddenly foolish and alone, a boy who sat muttering to empty air when he might have slept.
“Here,” the Old Wise One said, and motioned. A second Shadow child came and squatted beside him, solid and real. “Is it you I’m talking to, really?” Sandwalker asked, but the other did not answer or meet his eyes. After a moment he coughed into his hands as the Old Wise One had done and held them out.
“You talk to all of us when you talk to me,” the Old Wise One said. “Mostly to us five here; but also to all Shadow children. Though weak, their songs come from far away to help shape what I am. But look at what this one is showing you.”
For a moment Sandwalker looked instead at the Shadow child. He might have been young, but the dark face was silent and closed. The eyes were nearly shut, yet through the lids Sandwalker sensed his stare, friendly, embarrassed, and afraid.
“Take some,” invited the Old Wise One. Sandwalker prodded the chewed stuff with a finger and sniffed—vile.
“For this we have given up everything, because this is more than anything, though it is only a herb of this world. The leaves are wide, warty, and gray; the flowers yellow, the seed pink prickled eggs.”
“I have seen it,” Sandwalker said. “Leaves-you-can-eat warned me of it when I was young. It is poisoned.”
“So your kind believes, and so it is if swallowed—though to die in that way might be better than lifd But once, between the full face of sisterworld and her next, a man may take the fresh leaves, and folding them tightly carry them in his cheek. Then there is no woman for him, nor any meat; he is sacred then, for God walks in him.”
“I met such a one,” Sandwalker said softly. “I would have killed him save that I pitied him.”
He had not meant to speak aloud and he expected the Old Wise One to be angry, but he only nodded. “We too pity such a one,” he said, “and envy him. He is God. Understand that he pitied you as well.”
“He would have killed me.”
“Because he saw you for what you are, and seeing felt your shame. But only once, until sisterworld appears again as she did, may a man search out the plant and pluck new leaves, spitting away then that which he has carried and chewed until it comforts him no longer. If he takes the fresh leaves more often, he will die.”
“But the plant is harmless as you use it?”
“All of us have been warmed by it since we were very young, and we are healthy as you see us. Didn’t we fight well? We live to a great age.”
“How long?” Sandwalker was curious.
“What does it matter? It is great in terms of experience—we feel many things. When we die at last we have been greater than God and less than the beasts. But when we are not great, that which we carry in our mouths comforts us. It is flesh when we hunger and there is no fish, milk when we thirst and there is no water. A young man seeks a woman and finds her and is great and dies to the world. Afterward he is never as great again, but the woman is a comfort to him, reminding him of the time that was, and he is a little again with her what once he was wholly. Just so with us until our wives that were are white when we spit them into our palms, and without comfort. Then we watch sister-world’s face to see how great the time has been, and when the phase comes again we find new wives, and are young, and God.”
Sandwalker said, “But you no longer look as we look now.”
“We were that, and have exchanged for this. Long ago in our home, before a fool struck fire, we were so—roaming without whatever may be named save the sun, the night, and each other. Now we are so again, for are gods, and things made by hands do not concern us. And as we are, so are you—because you walk only as you see us walk, doing as we do.”
The thought of his own people imitating the Shadow children whom they by day despised amused Sandwalker; but he only said, “Now it is late, and I must rest. I thank you for all your kindness.”
“You will not taste?”
“Not now.”
The silent Shadow child, who seemed less real than the gossamer figure he crouched beside, returned the chewed fiber to his mouth and wandered away. Sandwalker stretched himself and wished Sweetmouth would come again to lie with him. The Old Wise One, without having left, was gone; and there were evil dreams: every part of him had vanished, so that he saw without eyes and felt without sJtin, hanging, a naked worm of consciousness amid blazing glories. Someone screamed.
They screamed again, and he came up fighting nothing, his arms flailing but his legs bound, his mouth full of grit. Cedar Branches Waving was screaming, and Leaves-you-can-eat and old Bloodyfinger seized his arms and pulled until he thought he must break. Around him in a circle the Shadow children watched, and Sweetmouth was crying.
“This dirt at the bottom goes down,” Bloodyfinger said when they had pulled him free, “and sometimes it goes down fast.”
Cedar Branches Waving said, “When you were still small but thought you were grown, you wouldn’t sleep beside me any longer, and I used to get up in the night and go over and see if you were all right. I woke and thought of that tonight.”
“Thank you.” He was still gagging and spitting sand.
From the shadows a voice told him, “We did not know. In the future, unsleeping eyes will watch you.”
“Thank you all,” Sandwalker said. “I have many friends.”
There was more talk until, one by one, the humans returned to their resting places and lay down again. Sandwalker moved for a time around the floor of the pit, testing the footing and listening for the crawling of the sand. He heard only Ocean, and at last tried to sleep again. “This cannot be true, Lastvoice was saying. “Look again!” “I cannot… a cloud—” Ahead the oily surface of the river stretched away beneath the night sky; black, glistening, broadening, it showed no stars, nothing but its own water and bits of floating weed. “Look again!” Long hands, soft yet bony, gripped his shoulders.
Someone shook him, and it was not yet light. For a moment he felt that he was sinking into the sand once more, but it was not so. Bloodyfinger and Sweetmouth were beside him, and behind them other, unfamiliar, figures. He sat up and saw that these were marshmen with scarred shoulders and knotted hair. Sweetmouth said, “We have to go.” Her large, foolish eyes looked everywhere at no one.
There was a liana to help them climb, and with the marshmen behind they floundered up, Sandwalker and Bloodyfinger first, then Leaves-you-can-eat, then the two women and the Shadow children. “Who?” Sandwalker asked Bloodyfinger, but the older man only shrugged.
At the river Lastvoice stood with his feet in the shallows and the dawnlight behind him. There was a chaplet of white flowers on his head, hiding the scars where his hair had been burned away; and another garland, of red blossoms that looked black in the pale light, upon his shoulders. Eastwind stood near him, watching, and on the bank several hundred people waited—silent figures light-stained early morning colors of yellow and red, their features growing clearer, individuals, a man here, a child there, standing suddenly contrasted from the mass with mask-like, immobile faces. Sandwalker ignored them and stared at Lastvoice; it was the first time he had seen the starwalker beyond the dreamworld.