Time Dancers

Trumoi-Meq and others. Sailor said, “Finding the Sixth Stone will reveal the true reason Unai and Usoa’s baby died. Everything is there, gentlemen, everything is there.” But instead of it sounding delusional or obsessive, it made me remember the words on the papyrus and the reason for Umla-Meq’s name on the note became clear.

I burst out, “Stop, Sailor, and come with me. You must see what Ray has discovered. Now!”

Sailor and Ray had to run to keep up with me, much to the annoyance of Sailor, who kept complaining as we were running, saying, “Zianno, please, is this absolutely necessary? I am an old man.” An American on board, a fat man in his fifties, was bumped by all three of us as we ran by. He yelled after us, “Goddamn kids! Watch where you’re going, goddamnit!”

As soon as Ray opened the door to his cabin, I said to Sailor, “Look at this.” The papyrus was still out on the bed. Ray said, “And look at this.” He handed Sailor the note he had been carrying since leaving Salzburg. The writing on the note was in a neat black script, handwritten in German and signed “Susheela the Ninth.” Her handwriting could be mistaken for any Giza’s. The name Umla-Meq was clearly visible, appearing twice in the text. Sailor needed no translator to read the note and as he read, Ray related the story of the mysterious black Meq girl who had lived outside Salzburg for a thousand years with the papyrus in her possession, then disappeared, leaving behind the papyrus and the handwritten note and instructions. Ray concluded with, “Thought I’d try and get it to you. Never thought it’d be here, though.”

“These things occur,” Sailor said and glanced at me with a faint grin. I didn’t say anything, but I realized he was back to being the same Sailor I had always known, not the frantic, angry, crazy Sailor I had last seen in Cornwall. He set the note aside without asking Ray one question, then touched the papyrus with his fingertips, tracing the surface until he found the tiny script in faded dark ocher near the center. He leaned over and examined it, not three inches away. Slowly, he turned his head and looked at me. “This is—” he started, but I finished the sentence for him.

“The same script that is in the Meq caves. Yes. Impossible, but true.”

His “ghost eye” narrowed. “What does it say, Zianno?” he asked in a low drone.

“It begins,” and I had to walk around the bed once in order to read the entire text. The tiny lines and half circles were written in the shape of a nautilus shell, beginning in the center and spiraling out to the end. Nine sentences, or “Steps,” each one punctuated and separated by a miniature image of a handprint. “It begins with these words: ‘Nine Steps of the Six,’ then nine lines follow in a spiral—‘The First One shall not know. The Second One shall not know. The Third One shall not know. The Fourth One shall not know. The Fifth One shall not know. The Living Change shall live within the Sixth One. The Five shall be drawn unto the Source Stone. The Living Change shall be Revealed. The Five shall be Extinguished.’ ”

When I finished, I looked up and Sailor was staring out one of the two tiny portholes in Ray’s cabin. The Iona was just getting under way and our next port of call was Barcelona. The whitewashed buildings of Santa Cruz de Tenerife were only a thin white stripe against the deep blue of sea and sky. “This confirms it,” Sailor said evenly, then turned and stared Ray and me in the eye, one to one and back again. He had stopped rubbing the star sapphire and his hands were still. In the light his eyes were like black diamonds. “We must find the Sixth Stone, gentlemen,” he said. “And I know where to begin.”

“Where?” I asked.

“Cairo, then the upper cataracts of the Nile and beyond, possibly as far as Ethiopia.”

“When?”

“As soon as we bury our friends.”

I looked at Ray and he shrugged, knowing what I was thinking and possibly thinking or feeling something similar about Nova.

Sailor could see the reason for my hesitation in my eyes. However, he also knew something about me that could still be summoned and stirred, and he made me an offer I could not refuse, regardless of my desire to return to St. Louis and Opari. “Do you know the reason I could not tell you I would be here?” he asked. “Why only Mowsel and Pello knew my location? It was because someone has been tracing my movements and harassing me from a distance. Someone who believes in the Sixth Stone and has a piece of the same information as I…someone who will surely be on the same trail, either waiting or following…someone I will gladly help you kill in any manner you choose, Zianno. When Mowsel told me of the savage and senseless attack on Unai and Usoa, I made my decision. Xanti Otso shall no longer be tolerated. The ‘Little Wolf,’ the Fleurdu-Mal, must be eliminated and a trap could be set for him with the Sixth Stone. He will chase it like a rat after cheese.” Sailor paused and looked at Ray, then back to me. “I also have something to give you, Zianno, something from Kepa. It was sent to me by Pello, along with instructions that Kepa wanted you to have it.” He bent down and extracted a neatly folded red beret tucked inside the top of his boot. He shook it out and handed it to me.

For some reason, I glanced at Ray’s tattered and torn bowler resting on a chair. “Ray,” I said, “you need a new look for this century. I want you to have Kepa’s beret.”

Ray took the beret and examined it, feeling the texture of the old woven wool, then looked over to his bowler. “It is a fine-looking beret, Z. And a damn nice color of red.”

“Well, what do you think?”

“I think you’re right. I think I need a change and I think we ought to go with Sailor. The time is right, Z.”

I realized I had already made my decision and I agreed with him. I turned to Sailor. “What about Arrosa?”

“If she wishes to return to New York, she may do so, or if she wishes to remain with Pello, it will be arranged. Whatever she chooses to do, someone from Kepa’s camp will watch over her.”

I nodded. “All right, then. I’m in.”

“Good, good,” Sailor said, then added cryptically, “Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for.”

Ray and I exchanged curious glances. “How do you know about Ithaca?” I asked.

“Ithaca?” Sailor said. His “ghost eye” focused in on me. “I was quoting lines from a poem.”

“Oh,” I said and left it alone.

“I’m hungry,” Ray blurted out. “Is it too early to find somethin’ to eat on this ship?”

“Of course not,” Sailor answered. “Remember, Ray, we are only children. We do not know any better.”

Ray laughed and said, “Let’s go.” He placed Kepa’s red beret on his head at a precise angle, as if he had been wearing it for centuries. He and Sailor started for the door. Before we were out of the room, Ray said, “You know, Sailor, when I was travelin’ with the Baron, many times we were near the country you’re talkin’ about—the Blue Nile and Ethiopia and those parts.” Sailor looked at Ray with surprise and admiration. Ray went on, “That’s right. I nearly got my head chopped off three times and practically starved to death on several occasions. Then I got my foot stomped on by a packhorse, took a spear point in the thigh, and was poisoned four separate times. Beautiful country, though. Beautiful.”

I laughed to myself and followed behind, listening to every word. After all, if the truth is, in fact, unknowable, then a wise man always follows the man with the beret.

PART II

Not to know what is in one’s past is to remain perpetually a child.

—Cicero

4. Olagarro (octopus)

The dying mariner approaches land after a long and troubled journey at sea. He drifts into the shallow pools of a rocky cove with nothing left but his secret, the secret he has stolen and smuggled to this