People of the Lightning(181)
Sleep, Lightning Boy, a voice whispers. Sleep now.
As if my eyes are not my own, the lids grow heavier and heavier, until they fall closed.
From nowhere, everywhere at once, come soft shishes and booms, and a faint drum beat rumbles through my body, stretching all the way to my fingers and toes. The thunder music soothes my fears, smoothing them away like a silky weasel-fur brush. Images flash and flit, and I feel myself soaring through the sky, high above the rainy world, bathed in roaring light. My heart aches with wonder. My frail human body feels that it may burst from the magnificent joy welling in my chest. And I know that if it does, molten radiance will spill out of me and drench the sky with fiery blue raindrops.
… If only this flight could last forever.
Forty-one
As the full moon slipped above the eastern horizon, ghostly silver light frosted the sky, and gilded the drifting thunderheads with a pale sheen. The howls of wolves carried on the warm wind that swept the shore. Musselwhite let her souls drift with that mournful serenade as she tied another piece of dead coral to her length of cordage. Pondwader stood before her, dressed in a breechclout, breathing hard. He’d started shaking a short time ago, and the tremor seemed to be getting worse. Moonlight penetrating the oak branches threw dark streaks of shadow across his white body. He looked at her with huge eyes.
Pondwader picked up another piece of dead coral, dropped it, picked it up again, and tried his best to wrap the cord around the irregular chunk. He couldn’t seem to make his fingers work. “M-musselwhite?”
“Here, Pondwader, let me do that. Why don’t you try to find a dry spot to stow our packs and your long robe. When we’re running south tomorrow, you’ll need your robe desperately.”
“A-all right.” He handed his cord to her and walked toward the trees with face downcast.
They had been forced to rip a wide strip of fabric from the foot of his robe to make his breechclout, knowing he could not survive the swim with the long robe tangling around his legs. But in the bright sunlight tomorrow afternoon, he would need that robe again, very badly. When the time came, she would use the breechclout to construct leggings for him.
When the time came. When she and Diver and Pondwader were all together, heading south toward Manatee Lagoon.
Longing rended her heart. She watched Pondwader gather up their packs and his folded robe, and wander into the dark forest. Moonlight reflected so from his pale flesh that she could follow his progress through the trees. It felt eerie, like observing a homeless soul going about its curious nightly duties. Except Pondwader made far more noise. Twigs snapped beneath his stumbling feet. Branches cracked when he butted into them. Very faintly, Musselwhite heard him heave an exasperated sigh.
“Blessed Sun Mother,” she said in a low reverent voice. “Let him live through this. He has so much ahead of him. So many wonderful adventures.”
She adjusted the bandage on her head. Her pain had eased to a dull constant headache. Annoying, but she could stand it. She tied three more large chunks of dead coral to Pondwader’s cord, and hefted it to determine its weight. The ocean lay as smooth as chalcedony, Sea Girl’s voice a bare murmur of waves. They would make it. This plan would work. It surprised her that she had not thought of it herself.
Musselwhite wore a pale green tunic. She had tied her stiletto and atlatl to her belt. On the ground at her feet lay two turtle-shell facemasks. That afternoon they’d drilled eyeholes in each, so they could see when they had to emerge from the water. Hopefully the masks would make them look like nothing more than floating turtles. She might not need it; her skin had been tanned to a deep brown, and would blend with the night, but Pondwader certainly would. She tied her mask on her belt. The atlatl would probably be useless, since she could not carry darts with her—but she wanted it in the event that she could retrieve an opponent’s miscast dart. Though, if she needed to, it would mean they had been discovered, and were probably dead anyway.
Pondwader emerged from the trees, his face taut. Both of them had braided and coiled their hair into buns at the backs of their heads. The style accented the oval shape of his young face. In the flood of silver light, he looked very tall and skinny for a ten-and-five-summers-old youth. Most warriors his age had packed their legs and shoulders with muscle from constant running and dart throwing. But Pondwader had had other priorities. His pink eyes gleamed with an unearthly light, as if he perceived a far more insubstantial world than she.
“I think I found a good place,” he said as he came up to stand beside her. He crossed his arms over his bare chest. “A rotten log with a hole in the center. I stuffed them in there.”