Jow at first had inclined to disbelieve his frightened babblings, then sent him off home with strong advice to say nothing to anyone else. “I wasn’t convinced he was right,” Jow said later to old Ren; “but I wasn’t convinced he was wrong, either. So I thought I’d take advantage of your thatch-raising, late for that though it was, and come and talk to you about it.”
Now, his face taut and haggard in the fire- and torchlight, he said, “Flee… There is nothing else for us to do! Who can fight Devils? We must leave everything behind and sail to the other islands, Zonia or Aper or the others. If there is no wind, we must paddle. And if the people there will receive us as we received Rowan, then good — if not, we must fight them and take their land. We must—”
Ren sighed and gripped his friend’s knees. “Must. Jow… listen. ‘Who can fight Devils?’ No one. True enough. But how do you know for sure that we must fight? That we must flee? That the Devils are here to destroy either us or our land? Obviously they are here. Obviously they have been here before — but our land is still here. Isn’t it?”
Jow nodded, half-reluctant, half-reassured. “But… Ren… you know… lots of times I warn people against danger and they laugh and say, ‘Nothing has ever happened before.’ And I tell them… listen, Ren… I tell them: ‘Nothing ever happens until the first time it happens…!’ ”
This was so true as to require no comment. Ren therefore made none and went on, grave and calm as before, “It is dark now and we can do nothing. Stay with us, be our guests. And tomorrow you and I, Jow, you and I will see for ourselves whatever is to be seen. Our boys are good fellows, but they are only boys. Woman!” He got to his feet.
From beyond the fires came his wife’s voice. “Ren?”
“Our guests will stay the night. Get things ready for them.” The women visitors broke into louder talk, deploring face-saving… as the relieved note in their voices showed. They did not know what was wrong, but they accepted that they need not know until the men thought fit to tell them. Yet it was a long way back, they were tired, their younger children were sleeping, and they welcomed the invitation to stay.
In the night Lors awoke to find his father’s right hand on his shoulder, his father’s left hand over his mouth. No word was spoken as they slipped out into the chill night air, the drops of the first dew dripping like the lightest of rains from the trees; the very stars, huge and swollen with lights, seeming themselves to be swimming down upon the earth through a black and liquid sea of night. He followed Ren across the compound to the most distant fire-pit, and there sat down beside him. Warmth still arose in a faint mist. The father took a stick and brushed off the embankment of ashes and blew upon the coals; as they went from gray to red he placed a small twig on them. In the brief half-light, his face shown ruddy and haggard.
“Lors,” he said — and stopped. He swallowed.
“Popa?”
“Lors. Could… It is no disgrace to be mistaken…” His voice was a bare whisper. Lors leaned close to listen. “It would be about the wrongest thing possible to allow so many people to be frightened for an error… Or for a game… You would not — Lors? — is it not possible that you are not really sure that you did see what you say? Perhaps you jumped too quickly to conclusions. Perhaps—”
Lors put his hand on his father’s knee. “No, Popa. Don’t think that. It’s no game. It’s no error. We did see them. We saw the thing that Carlo drew. We did. We saw them.” His voice, despite his resolution that it would not, trembled. Not so much from fear of what he had seen as from his shock and grief at seeing and hearing his father so shaken. He gave a little sound of anguish as he heard his father moan at his reply, saw him rock back and forth.
“Popa — there were only two of them! Only two!”
Barely audibly, old Ren said, through the hand which covered his face, “There will be more. There will be more. There will be—”
Lors seized the hand and shook it. “Then we’ll do what Jow said — we’ll leave this land and go where they can’t find us!”
The hand came away from Ren’s face. His son felt the track of the tears upon it and, try as he would not to, began to weep, himself.
“Where is there a place where they can’t find us? And if we knew of such a place, how would we get there? In our fishing-canoes? They wouldn’t hold a hundredth-part of the people, boy. Are we to build more? Bark trees and wait for them to dry and cut them and hollow them and season them and prepare provisions — enough for who knows how long a voyage? Will they give us time? Or are we to try and make our escapes in boats of green wood and watch them founder under us? Jow didn’t think of this. He didn’t think!”
Ren wiped his face. “You see why, Lors? You see why you have to be wrong? Because even if there were the possibility of us all getting away, why? — what for? — to wait in some other island for the Devils to get around to coming for us? To spend the rest of our lives in that fear and then, if we die in our beds, to hand that fear down to our children like an inheritance?”
His son said, unsteadily, but not without courage, “But what’s the choice? Either we stay and fight, or we turn and we flee. What other choices are there?”
His father raked the ashes back upon the embers. His voice came from the darkness, thick and dull. “No choice. We can’t stay. We can’t escape. We can’t fight. We have no choices. None. None…” His voice died away. He did not move. Then, slowly, his head sank down upon his knees. But he moved no more than this. And he moved no more.
Lors stared. He swallowed. He wiped his nose with his hand. He could have sat, himself, or crouched, motionless for hours beside a game trail. But he could not sit still for this. It was horrible. Death was only a theory to him, and the deeds of Devils something he had merely heard of it. His mind could not encompass either his own destruction or the destruction of his land and family and friends. What tore at him now was the incredible and shocking spectacle of his father, that roof-pillar of strength, reduced to tears and to utter despair. This was intolerable. He jumped to his feet, filled with a childish urge to run away and run and run and stay away until he could come back to find everything in order once again, trouble forgotten. Even as he turned to set his feet, and even as he realized how useless and impossible this impulse was, the night vanished in a burst of rose-colored noise which ceased on the instant, leaving him blinded and deafened—
Again the blaze of ruddy light — his father’s face open and aghast and all the homesite — again the ear-shattering, mind-benumbing noise — Again the darkness and the thick, echoing silence.
From the house came the sound of a woman’s voice, a hooting, ululating, uncontrolled, almost sexual sound. And upon this breakthrough every conceivable human and animal noise followed. The people poured out of the house, stumbling, trampling, crying, calling, shouting, shrieking; children wailing, woman wailing, boys trying to assert manhood and courage but betrayed by breaking voices, men demanding to see the faces of their enemies—
“Earthquake!”