“Where you going to send me?” he asked.
“The Nine Suns. You will walk with the Sapiil.”
“Will my fathers be there?”
“Your new fathers will welcome you into their number,” said Tom.
“The Sapiil,” said the Indian. “What tribe is that?”
“Yours,” said Tom. “From this moment on.”
“You will go to Maguali-ga,” said the Mexican. “You will never know pain again, or sorrow, or the emptiness in the heart. Go with God, friend Nick. It is the happiest moment for you, now.”
“Stand close around him,” Tom said. “Everybody join hands.”
“Maguali-ga, Maguali-ga,” the Mexican said. The Indian nodded and smiled. There were tears in the comers of his eyes.
“Now,” Tom said.
It was quick, a fast sudden surge and the big man slid easily to the ground and was gone.
Easier and easier all the time, Tom thought.
He led the fat woman and the Mexican past a place where a small building had been all broken up into slats, and started to go down toward the center of things, toward the bus that was sitting right in the middle. He thought he might sit on the steps of the bus and use that as a kind of platform for performing the Crossings. But he had gone only a few steps when a man and a woman came up to him. They looked pale and uneasy, and they were holding hands as if their lives depended on staying together. The woman was small and good-looking, with curling red hair and a pretty face. The man, who was slender and dark, had a bookish look about him.
The man pointed toward the Indian, who was lying in the mud with the smile of the Crossing on his face. “What did you do to him?”
“He has gone to Maguali-ga,” Menendez said. “This man, he holds the power of the gods in his hands.”
The man and the red-haired woman looked at each other.
The man said, “Is that what happened to the other man, the one in the dormitory?”
“He went to the Double Kingdom,” Tom said. “I have sent some to Ellullimiilu today also, and some to live with the Eye People. The whole universe is open to us now.”
“Send us to the Nine Suns!” the woman said.
“Lacy…” the man said.
“No, listen to me, Barry. This is real, I know it. They join hands and he sends you. You see the smiles on those faces? The spirit went out of him, you saw that. Where did it go? I bet it went to Maguali-ga.”
“The man’s dead, Lacy.”
“The man has left his body behind. Listen, we stay here any longer, we’ll get trampled to death anyway. You see how they’re pulling the place apart since they saw the Senhor get killed? Let’s do it, Barry. You said you had faith, that you had seen the truth. Well, here’s the truth. Here’s our moment, Barry. The Senhor had it upside down, that’s all. The gods aren’t coming to Earth, you see? We’re supposed to go to them. And here’s the man to send us.”
“Come,” Tom said. “Now.”
“Barry?” the woman said.
The man looked stunned. He was afraid, untrusting. He blinked, he shook his head, he stared around. To help him, Tom sent him a vision, just the edge of one, the nine glorious suns in full blaze. The man drew in his breath sharply and pressed both his hands against his mouth and hunched his shoulders up, and then he seemed to relax. The woman said his name again and put her hand on his arm, and after a moment he nodded. “All right,” he said quietly. “Yes. Why the hell not? This is what we were all looking for, wasn’t it?” To Tom he said, “Where are we going to go?”
“The Sapiil kingdom,” Tom said. “The empire of the Nine Suns.”
“To Maguali-ga,” said Menendez.
Tom reached for the hands of the fat woman and the Mexican. He rocked back and forth on his heels a moment.
“Now,” he said.
Both at once, this time. He took the energy from the fat woman and the Mexican and passed it through himself and sent the man and the woman to the Sapiil. The ease of it surprised him. He had never done that before, two at the same time.
The man and the red-haired woman slid to the ground and lay face up, smiling the wonderful Crossing-smile. Tom knelt and lightly touched their cheeks. That was a beautiful smile, that smile. He envied them, walking now among the Sapiil under those nine glorious suns. While he was still here slopping around in the mud. But that was all right, Tom thought. He had his tasks to do first.
He started down the hill again. All about him were people screaming and shouting and waving their arms hysterically in the air. “Peace to you all,” Tom said. “It is the Time of the Crossing, today, and everything is going well.” But the people came rushing past, confused and angry. For a moment Tom was swept up in the confusion, jostled and buffeted, and when he was in the clear again he could no longer see the fat woman or the Mexican. Well, he would find them again sooner or later, he told himself. They knew he was heading toward the bus, and they would go there to wait for him, because they were his assistants in bringing about the Crossing, they were part of the great event that was unfolding here today in the rain and the mud and the chaos.
Someone caught him by the arm, held him, stopped him.
“Tom.”
“Charley? You still here?”
“I told you. I was waiting for you. Now come on with me. We got the van still sitting out there in the forest, in the clearing. You got to get yourself away from here.”
“Not now, Charley. Don’t you understand that the Crossing is going on?”
“The Crossing?”
“Six, eight people have set out on the journey already. There will be many more. I feel the strength rising in me, Charley. This is the day I was born for.”
“Tom—”
“You go to the van and wait for me there,” Tom said. “I’ll come to you in a little while and help you make your Crossing, as soon as I can find my people, my helpers. You’ll be on the Green World an hour from now, I promise you that. Away from all this craziness, away from all this noise.”
“Man, you don’t understand. People are getting killed here. There are trampled bodies all over the place. Come on with me, man. It isn’t safe for you here. You don’t know how to look after yourself. I don’t want to see anything happen to you, Tom, you know? You and me, we’ve traveled a long way together, and—I don’t know, I just feel I ought to look after you.” Charley took Tom’s arm again and pulled gently. Tom felt the warmth of this man’s soul, this scratcher, this wandering killer. He smiled. But he could not leave, not now. He peeled Charley’s hand from his arm. Charley scowled and shook his head, and started to say something else.
Then the crazy mob came swirling back in their direction and Charley was borne away, carried off by the tide of humanity like a twig on the breast of a raging river.
Tom stepped out of their way and let them go thundering past. But he saw it was impossible to get to the bus now. Things were too wild, down there in the middle of the lawn.
He thought he saw the fat woman off toward one side, and went off in her direction. But as he was clambering over the tumbled boards of some shattered little cabin he lost his footing on the slippery wood and slid downward into the shambles of planks and joists. For the moment he was stuck, his leg jammed deep down into it. There was a stirring in front of him and someone began to crawl out from the pile of wood.