sound — oh, the sound — my ears seemed to cry with the pain of a sound so loud.
If I had thought the sound of Musk-Watz earlier sweeping through the village had been loud, he was only a whisper compared to this. It was as if Ouells himself had come down, and clapped his mighty hands together in a sudden howling wind. But the sound continued — mutated into a continuous rumbling thunder that rolled up and down the hills. It grumbled and rumbled, rumbled and grumbled across the world. It echoed and re-echoed in a never-ending wave. I was sure I could hear it long after it actually had died away. That great bass roar went on and on and on. Small rocks began to fall from the sky.
Elcin had spoken.
I found my wife huddled in the crotch of two branches, beneath an uprooted tree.
“Are you all right?” I asked, helping her to her feet.
She nodded.
“Good. Then find some bandage and tape up my ribs. I am in pain.”
“Yes, my husband.” She began dutifully to tug at her skirt.
I recognized that; it was one of her favorites. I put out my hand, “No, do not tear that. Find something else. That is all that you have left in the world. Keep it intact.”
She looked up at me, grateful tears flooding her eyes, “Yes, my husband …” She paused, and I knew she wanted to say something else, but feared.
“Go on …” I urged.
She fell to her knees, unmindful of the mud, and clasped fiercely at my hands, “Oh, my husband, I feared so for your safety. My heart is filled with such gladness at the sight of you, I cannot bear it. I could not bear the thought of life without you.” She kissed my hands, buried her face against my waist. I stroked the fur on the top of her head, mud-smeared though it was. It did not matter; we were both soaked through.
“It’s all right…” I murmured gently.
“Oh, tell me it is, tell me. Tell me that the danger is over, that all is right with the world again.”
“Stand up, woman,” I said. She did. “I have lost everything. My nest is gone and my tree has been uprooted. I know not where any of my children are, nor where my other wives have fled to. I have nothing. Only the clothes I am wearing. But I am still not a poor man .. .”
“Not …?” She looked at me, brown eyes wide with wonder.
“No, I am not. I still have one woman, a good woman.” I looked into her eyes, wide and glowing with love. “A woman with a strong back and a willingness to work. And it is enough. I can rebuild. Now go and find that bandage. My ribs ache with the pain of standing.”
“Oh yes, my husband. Yes.” She began moving cautiously across the mud-covered landscape. I lowered myself care-fully to the ground. To rest, to sleep …
Before leaving the village we searched through the mud to see if anything of value remained intact. We found little. I had hoped to find my bicycle, but that had been smashed under a falling tree. I ached to see that finely carved machine crushed to sodden pulp. Truly, I had been right when I had said that we had nothing but the clothes on our backs.
We stood in the ruins of the village and surveyed the disaster.
“What will we do, my husband?”
“We will move on,” I said to her. “There is nothing left for us here.” I turned and looked at the distant blue prairie. There,” I pointed, “we will go south. Probably most of the others have had the same thought.”
She nodded in acquiescence and shouldered her miniscule pack. Painfully we started the long trek.
The suns were high in the sky when we saw a single tiny figure on a bicycle hurrying to catch up to us from the west.
There was something familiar about that — no, it couldn’t be.
But it was! “Shoogar!” I cried, “You are alive!”
He shot me a look and climbed off the bicycle, “Of course, I’m alive, Lant. What did you think?” He paused, looked at the dried mud caked on our clothes, “What happened to you?”
“We were in the village. We saw the end of Purple’s nest. But it headed toward the mountains to die. We thought that —”
“Nonsense, Lant.
“The nest must have just missed you.”
Shoogar nodded, “I saw it coming. When it finished with the village, only then did it go for the mountains. Only I was no longer there.”
“Shoogar, that’s brilliant!”
He shrugged modestly, brushed a speck of dirt from the sleeve of his robe. “It was nothing. I had it planned that way.”
There was nothing more to say. We watched as he mounted the bicycle again, his dignity and reputation were tall and triumphant. Once more he began pedaling into the south. It made me proud to know him.
Blue twilight had faded and flashed into red dawn before we found a place to stop. We were on a rocky outcrop over-looking a series of rolling hills, a black wooded slope, and beyond that we could make out the vague distant shapes of a village of brooding housetrees.
Behind us, what had been a desert was fast becoming a sea.
It was not necessary to give the order to halt. Instinctively we knew we had done enough traveling for one day. Exhausted, the women sank to the ground, discarding their heavy packs and burdens where they fell. Children sank immediately into fitful slumber, and men stooped to massage their tired legs.
We were a sorry, shabby crew. The healthiest of us was in none too good a shape. Many had lost most of their body fur, and the rest had lost their grooming. (The knots and tangles in my own fur would be there until they grew out; they were too far gone for repair.) Open and running sores were not uncommon, and too many of our ailments did not respond to Shoogar’s ministrations.
My number two wife, one of the balding women, began to lay a meager meal before me. Under any other circumstances I might have cursed the poor quality of the food and beaten her for there being so little of it — but under our present conditions I knew that this was a hardwon feast. She had probably spent many hours searching for these pitiful greens and nuts. Still, it wasn’t what I was used to and I forced myself to eat it only with the greatest distaste.
As I sat there, silently chewing the tough vegetable fibers, a figure approached. I recognized the now nearly hairless Pilg; once our village crier, now a homeless vagabond, as we all were. He was thin and wan and his ribs made an ugly pattern under his skin.
“Ah, Lant,” he cried effusively, “I hope I am not interrupting anything.”
He was and he knew it. I pretended not to hear him at first, and I concentrated on a particularly tough root instead.
He threw himself down in front of me. I closed my eyes. “Lant,” he said, “it appears that we are nearing our journey’s end. Doesn’t that gladden your soul?”
I opened one eye. Pilg was eagerly eyeing my dinner bowl. “No,” I said, “it doesn’t.”
Pilg was uncrushed. “Lant, you should look on the joyous side of life.”
“Is there one?” I choked down the root and bit off another, smaller chunk.
“Of course. You should count your blessings. You still have four of your children and two wives and all your hair — and your first wife is with child. That is far more than I can claim.”
That was true. Pilg had lost his only wife and all but one of his children — and that one a girl — no credit there. Yet what I had lost was greater than what I had saved. I could not help feeling bitter.
“We have lost our whole village,” I said. I spat out a bitter shred at Pilg’s feet. He eyed it uncertainly, but
