“Tomorrow? The answer is both no and yes.”
“What does that mean? Who?”
“Someone dies every day,” the Old Wise One answered. And then, “I am what you call a Shadow child, remember. If the stars speak to me it is of our own affairs they speak. But it is all foolish divination—the truth is what one believes.”
“Will it be Cedar Branches Waving?”
The Old Wise One shook his head. “Not she. Not tomorrow.”
Sandwalker lay back, sighing with relief. “I won’t ask about the others. I don’t want to know.”
“That is wise.”
“Then why walk among stars?”
“Why indeed? We have just sung the Tear Song for our dead. You were full of thoughts of the others who died, so we are not angry that you did not join—but the Tear Song is better than such thoughts.”
“It won’t bring them back.”
“Would we wish it?”
“Wish what?” Sandwalker found, with a certain wrench of surprise, that he was angry, and angry at himself for being so. When the Old Wise One did not answer immediately he added, “What are you talking about?” The constellations flashed with icy contempt, ignoring them both.
“I only meant,” the Old Wise One said slowly, “if our song could call back Hatcher and Hunter, would we sing? Returned from death, would we not kill them?” Sandwalker noticed that the Old Wise One seemed younger than he had previously. Ghosts were strange.
And easily offended he remembered. “I’m sorry if I sounded discourteous,” he said as politely as he could. “Hatcher and Hunter were your friends’ names? They were my friends too if I am a shadowfriend, and Bloodyfinger, and Leaves-you-can-eat. We should do something for them too—sit around and tell stories about them until late— but this doesn’t seem like a place where you can do it. I don’t feel good.”
“I understand. You yourself resemble the man you called Bloodyfinger to a marked degree.”
“His mother’s mother and my mother’s were probably sisters or something.”
“You are looking at my comrades, the other Shadow children. Why?”
“Because I never thought of Shadow children having names. I only thought of them as the Shadow children.”
“I know.” The Old Wise One was staring at the sky again, reminding Sandwalker that he had said he could walk there. After what seemed a long time (Sandwalker lay down again, turning on his belly and resting his head on his arms, where he could smell, faintly, the salt tang of his own flesh), he said, “Their names are Foxfire, Swan, and Whistler.”
“Just like people.”
“We had no names before men came out of the sky,” the Old Wise One said dreamily. “We were mostly long, and lived in holes between the roots of trees.”
Sandwalker said, “I thought we were the ones.”
“I am confused,” the Old Wise One admitted. “There are so many of you now and so few of us.”
“You hear our songs?”
“I am made of your songs. Once there was a people using their hands—when they had hands—only to take food; there came among them another who crossed from star to star. Then it was found that the first heard the songs of the second and sent them out again—greater, greater, greater than before. Then the second felt their songs more strongly in all their bones—but touched, perhaps, by the first. Once I was sure I knew who the first were, and the second; now I am no longer sure.”
“And I am no longer sure of what it is you’re saying,” Sandwalker told him.
“Like a spark from the echoless vault of emptiness,” the Old Wise One continued, “the shining shape slipped steaming into the sea…” But Sandwalker was no longer listening. He had gone to lie between Sweetmouth and Seven Girls Waiting, reaching out a hand to each.
The next morning, before dawn, the liana was flung down the side of the pit again. This time there was no need for the marsh men to come down into The Other Eye to drive the hill-people up. Someone shouted from the rim and they came, though slowly and unwillingly. At the top Eastwind stood waiting, and Sandwalker, who had climbed with the three remaining Shadow children, asked him, “How were the stars last night?”
“Evil. Very evil. Lastvoice is disturbed.”
Sandwalker said: “I thought they looked bad myself—Swift right in the hair of Burning Hair Woman. I don’t think Leaves you-can-eat and old Bloodyfinger delivered the message you gave them. Leaves-you-can-eat would always do about what anybody asked him, but old Bloodyfinger’s probably been telling everyone you deserve worse than you’ve been getting. That’s what I’m going to do myself if you send me.”
Eastwind exclaimed, “Fool!” and tried to knock him down. When he could not, two of the marshmen did.
It was misty, and because of the mist dark. Sandwalker (when he got up) thought that the darkness and cold fog, which he knew would be thickest a few feet above the water of the river, would be excellent for escape; but apparently the marshmen thought so as well. One walked on either side of him, holding his arms. Today it seemed a long way to the river. He stumbled, and his guards hurried him along to catch up with the others. Ahead the small, dark backs of the Shadow children and the broad, pale ones of marshmen appeared and vanished again.
“A good eating last night,” one of the marshmen said. “You weren’t invited, but you’ll be there tonight.”
Sandwalker said bitterly, “But your stars are evil.”
Fear and fury rushed into the man’s eyes, and he wrenched Sandwalker’s arm. Ahead, in the mist, there were not quite human screams, then silence.
“Our stars may be evil,” the other marshman said, “but our bellies will be full tonight.” Two more came walking back the way they had come, each carrying the limp body of a Shadow child. Sandwalker could smell the river—and hear, in the uncanny silence of the fog, the sound its ripples made against the bank.
Lastvoice stood as he had before, tendrils of white vapor twining about his tall figure. The marshmen wore necklaces and anklets and bracelets and coronets of bright green grass today, and danced a slow dance on the bank; women, children, and men all winding like a serpent, mumbling as they danced. Eastwind relieved one of the guards and muttered in Sandwalker’s ear, “This may! be the last muster of the marsh. The stars are very evil.” Sandwalker answered contemptuously, “Are you so afraid of them?” Then Eastwind was gone, and the guards were thrusting him, with the last Shadow child, his mother, and the two girls into a shivering group. Pink Butterflies was crying, and Seven Girls Waiting rocked her back and forth, comforting her with some nonsense and asking things of God. Sandwalker put his arm around her and she buried her face in his shoulder.
The last Shadow child stood next to Sandwalker, and Sandwalker, looking down, saw that he trembled. The Old Wise One stood beside him, so thin in the mist that it seemed no one except Sandwalker could possible see him. Unexpectedly the last Shadow child touched Sandwalker’s arm and said, “We will die together. We loved you.”
“Chew harder,” Sandwalker told him, “and you won’t believe that.” And then, because he was sorry to have hurt a friend at such a time he added more kindly, “Which one are you—aren’t you the one who showed me what it is you chew?”
“Wolf.”
Lastvoice had begun his chant. Sandwalker said, “Your Old Wise One told me last night your names were Foxfire, Whistler, and something else I forget—but there was none of that name.”
“We have names for seven,” the Shadow child said, “and names for five. The names for three you have heard. My name now is the name for one. Only his name, the Old Wise One’s name, never changes.”
“Except,” the Old Wise One whispered, “when I am called—as occasionally I once was—the Group Norm.” The Old Wise One was only a sort of emptiness in the mist now, a man-shaped hole.
Sandwalker had been watching the guards, and he saw, as he thought, an opening—a moment of relaxation of vigilance as they listened to Lastvoice. The mist hung everywhere and the river was wide and hidden. If God so willed, he might reach the deep water…
