The Fifth Head of Cerberus

He bolted, feet splashing, then slipping as he tried to dive his supple body between two marshmen. They caught him by the hair and smashed his face with fists and knees before pushing him back among the others. Seven Girls Waiting, Sweetmouth, and his mother tried to help him, but he cursed them and drove them away, bathing his face in the bitter river water.

“Why did you do that?” the last Shadow child asked.

“Because I want to live. Don’t you know that in a few minutes they’re going to drown us all?”

“I hear your song,” the Shadow child said, “and I wish to live too. I am not, perhaps, of your blood, but I wish to live.”

“But we must die,” the voice of the Old Wise One whispered.

“We must die,” Sandwalker said harshly, “not you. They won’t pick your bones.”

“When this one dies, I die,” the Old Wise One said, indicating the last Shadow child. “Half I am of your making and half of his, but without him to echo, your mind will not shape me.”

Softly the last Shadow child said again, “I, too, wish to live. It may be that there is a way.”

“What?” Sandwalker looked at him.

“Men cross the stars, bending the sky to make the way short. Since first we came here—”

“Since first they came here,” the Old Wise One corrected him gently. “Now I am half a man, and know that we were always here listening to thought that did not come; listening without thought of our own to be men. Or it may be that all are one stock, half-remembering and dwindling, half-forgetting and flourishing.”

“The song of the girl with the little child is in my mind,” said the last Shadow child, “and the one they call Lastvoice is chanting. And I do not care if we are two or one. We have sung to hold the starcrossers back. We desired to live as we wished, unreminded of what was and is; and though they have bent the sky, we have bent their thought. Suppose I now sing them in, and they come? The marshmen will take them, and there will be many to choose from. Perhaps we will not be chosen.”

“Can one do so much?” Sandwalker asked.

“We are so few that among us even one is no mean number. And the others sing so the starcrossers will not see what they wish to see. For a heartbeat my song will clear their sight, and the bent sky is near here at many points. They will be swift.”

“It is evil,” the Old Wise One said. “For very long we have walked carefree in the only paradise. It would be better if all here were to die.”

The last Shadow child said firmly, “Nothing is worse than that I should die,” and something that had wrapped the world was gone. It went in an instant and left the river and the mist, the shaking, dancing marshmen and chanting Lastvoice and themselves all unchanged, but it had been bigger than everything and Sandwalker had never seen it because it had been there always, but now he could not remember what it had been. The sky was open now, with nothing at all between the birds and the sun; the mist swirling around Lastvoice might reach to Burning Hair Woman. Sandwalker looked at the last Shadow child and saw that he was weeping and that his eyes held nothing at all. He felt that way himself, and turning to Cedar Branches Waving asked, “Mother, what color are my eyes now?”

“Green,” Cedar Branches Waving answered. “They look gray in this light, but they are green. That is the color of eyes.” Behind her Seven Girls Waiting and Sweetmouth murmured, “Green.” And Seven Girls Waiting added, “Pink Butterflies’s eyes are green too.”

Then, glowing red as old blood through the fog, a spark appeared—high overhead to the north, where Ocean moved like an eel under the grayness. Sandwalker saw it before anyone else. It grew larger, more angry, and a whistling and humming came over the water; on the bank one of the dancing women screamed and pointed as the gout of red fire came hissing down. It made the noise heard when lightning kills a tree. There were two more red stars falling with it already, and the shrieking of all the people followed them down, and when they struck, the marshmen fled. Sweetmouth and Seven Girls Waiting threw their arms around Sandwalker and buried their faces in his chest. The marshmen who had guarded them were running, tearing away their grass bracelets and crowns.

Only Lastvoice stood. His chant had stopped, but he did not flee. Sandwalker thought he saw in his eyes a despair like that of the exhausted beast that at last turns and bares its throat to the jaws of the tire-tiger. “Come,” Sandwalker said, pushing aside the girls and taking his mother’s arm; but in his ear the Old Wise One said, “No.”

Behind them feet were splashing in the river water. It was Eastwind, and when Lastvoice saw him said, “You ran.”

Eastwind answered: “Only for a moment. Then I remembered.” He sounded shamed. Lastvoice said, “I shall speak no more,” and turned his back on them all, looking out to Ocean.

Sandwalker said: “We’re going. Don’t try to stop us.”

“Wait.” Eastwind looked at Cedar Branches Waving. “Tell him to wait.”

She said to Sandwalker, “He, too, is my son. Wait.”

Sandwalker shrugged and asked bitterly, “Brother, what do you want of us?”

“It is a matter for men, not women; and not,” Eastwind looked at the last Shadow child, “for such as he. Tell them to go to the bank and upriver. No marshman, I swear, will hinder them.”

The women went, but the last Shadow child only said, “I will wait on the bank,” and Eastwind, defeated, nodded.

“Now, Brother,” said Sandwalker, “what walks here?”

“While the stars remain in their places,” Eastwind answered slowly, “the starwalker judges the people; but when a star falls the river must be clouded with his blood, that it may forget. His disciple does this, aided by all nearby.”

Sandwalker looked a question.

“I can strike,” Eastwind said, “and I will strike. But I love him, and I may not strike hard enough. You must help me. Come.”

Together they swam the river, and on the farther bank found a tree of that white-barked kind Sandwalker had once dreamed grew in a great circle about Eastwind. The roots trailed in the bitter water, and selecting a branching one less thick than a finger, Eastwind bit it through, pulled it up dripping to give to Sandwalker. It was as long as his arm, the lower part heavy with small shellfish and smelling of ooze. While Sandwalker examined it, Eastwind took another for himself, and with them they flogged Lastvoice until no further blood ran as he floated, though the sharp little shells sliced the white flesh of his back. “He was a hill-man,” Eastwind said. “All starwalkers must be born in the high country.”

Sandwalker dropped his bloody flail into the water. “Now what?”

“It is over.” Eastwind’s eyes were wet with tears. “His body is not eaten, but allowed to drift to Ocean, a total sacrifice.”

“And you rule the marsh now?”

“My head must be burned as his was. Then—yes.”

“And why should I let you live? You would have drowned our mother. You are no man, and I can kill you.” Before Eastwind could answer Sandwalker had seized him, bending him backward by the hair.

“If he dies,” the Old Wise One’s voice whispered to Sandwalker, “something of you dies with him.”

“Let him die. It is u part of me I wish to kill.”

“Would he slay you thus?”

“He would have drowned us all.”

“For what was in his mind. You slay him now for hate. Would he have slain you so?”

“He is like me,” Sandwalker said, and he bent Eastwind back until the water was on his forehead and lapping at his eyes.

“There is a way to know,” the Old Wise One said, and Sandwalker saw that the last Shadow child had come out into the river again. When he saw Sandwalker looking at him, he repeated, There is a way.”

“Very well, how?”

“Let him up,” the Shadow child said, and to Eastwind, “You eat us but you know we are a magic people.”