"Yaltring, wake up. Dad’s already leaving." He felt himself gently shaking, and thought he was at sea. Then he opened his eyes to see his eldest brother Hovak on his bed looking intently into them. "The wind’s fresh in the east. You still have time--he’s going into the village for some fishing lines first. But you’d better get up." Yaltring raised his head a little, rubbed his eyes, then sat straight up, looking rather woozy. "Okay," he said. Hovak lingered a moment on the edge of the bed. "Good going on your birthday yesterday," he said at last. Yaltring looked at him questioningly. "You’re quite a fighter, little spitfire," Hovak said, his eyes gleaming. "I think you’re going to grow up to be a great warrior." "Who, me?" said Yaltring. "I don’t want to be a warrior. An explorer, maybe, if I can get out of here." "A feared explorer," Hovak continued. Yaltring grinned at him. Himak raced into the room and jumped on the bed. "Dad gets to fish with a stowaway turkey today!" he shouted, mussing Yaltring’s hair. "Oh yeah?" said Yaltring. "Well, at least he won’t get drowned, fishing with you." "Yaltring’s a tough guy," said Hovak firmly. Fimak strolled into the room. "Hey, why don’t you let him out of bed?" he said. "Dad just left." He turned his head to catch Yaltring’s eye. "Hey, Yaltring. We made a pretty good team, didn’t we?" "Yeah--the ones of us who showed up on time." Yaltring glared at Himak sarcastically. Himak’s face got stuck between a laugh and a scowl. "Hey! I was covering the other side, in case you got lost. I came as soon as I could." "In case I got lost?" shouted Yaltring gleefully, pulling on his clothes. "If you hadn’t heard the drums, you would’ve probably fallen into the ocean!" "Shut up!" shouted Himak, shaking Yaltring’s shoulder. "At least I never needed help to find a capspool!" "I already had the capspool when you guys helped me, you dummy!" yelled Yaltring, struggling to get loose. "You’d better let him go, or Dad’ll see him!" said Fimak. "I don’t know why he left so early, but Yaltring’s gotta get down there now." "Don’t forget to grab some food, Yaltring," said Hovak. "Good luck with your plan. Keep it up, and you will be a feared explorer!" "Really?" said Himak. "You mean, the other explorers will be afraid he’ll stick his tongue out at them?" Yaltring stuck his tongue out at Himak, and raced on out of the room.
He tread furtively through the balmy first morning of summer, as they reckoned it in the Southeast Islands, where days begin at dawn but seasons at noon. The bright pathway rose up to meet him, a dirt ribbon that led around the edge of the village into a clear open space, grassy and weedy, winding just barely not straight over slightly sloping ground. His passing was greeted by a lugubrious lowing, and he turned his head to the right, where, a little further inland, not far from where the woods began, Shumba the cow was chewing endlessly, keeping short an expanse of grass sundered by his path. But no one else was about. He did not return her greeting, but continued onward to a steep slope until he had reached the top of a little rise; and there below him was the sea. His father’s boat lay unmanned, rocking gently in the waves a few yards from the sandy shore. Yaltring looked around on every side, but still he saw no one. And if his plan worked, he wouldn’t have to see Kazo all day. He crept down to the shore, waded to the boat, pulled his legs over--and crawled in.
Nestled snugly in the storage hold at the bottom of his father’s boat, Yaltring’s hands wandered to his pocket. There he found a small cubical object that had been with him every day for three years. He often looked into the little box of moon at times like this, when he had little to do. Idly, the crank turned in his hand, and the stars spun swiftly around the slowly waxing and waning moon that dominated the inner dark. They showed sharply even in the dim light of the hold. Each time the group of stars called the Little Pitcher reached the top of the box, the growing moon would get brighter for a moment, or a red glow would fill out the moon’s circle as it waned. That was all he saw while cranking fast; but turning slower he glimpsed a tiny golden flash between an old moon’s death and a new one’s appearance. When he turned the handle very, very slowly, the flash became clearer--a golden circle, smaller than the moon, with a piece missing from its underside, as if the blackness around it intruded in a jagged cone. It was hard to be sure of the shape, since he saw it only in the moment of disappearing. Even his mother couldn’t tell him what the golden patch meant, or why it was there. Yaltring tried, as he often had, to capture it, freeze it, stop the box with the golden glow alight. But its passing was too swift, the movements of the box too fine, and it kept vanishing just as he let go of the handle; or else he would stop too soon, before the flash appeared--and then, when he nudged the handle again, he went right past it. Sila had always told him not to turn the handle backwards, but perhaps if he tapped it just slightly in the wrong direction, he could get back to the patch of gold. He pushed, but it did not seem to move. He held his finger to it, trying to gradually increase the pressure. Suddenly, the boat’s bottom shook, and the box dropped from his hand and snapped shut. There were footsteps above, and Yaltring knew his father was aboard. Yaltring slunk against a storage chest and held his breath, wondering if Drengo would come to the middle of the boat and see him there in the hold. But soon, Yaltring could feel the boat drifting away, out upon the heaving mounds of salt that crashed and collapsed in watery surrender, making a whole that persisted and never congealed. Blue to blue, the boat was surrounded on all sides but the land, whose chirpings and rustlings already were lost amidst the endless whishing and splashing and the whistle-sounds of the wind. Around the boy and his father, a contained violence raged, flip-side of a far-away storm, lightly lifting and gently dropping the scrap of wood that was all that kept the two of them afloat. Yaltring picked up his moonbox and played with it again while the boat slid smoothly out.
Slowly, quietly, he crept up the ladder. His head peeked out above the deck. There was his father, his back turned to him, sitting quietly with a fishing pole in hand. A few dead fish lay in a heap behind him. The sun was now high in the sky. Yaltring raised his head a little more, and looked around. He spotted Imme, the little island on which he lived, a modest green patch in the distance, a smooth sheen of water stretching on either side and continuing till the edge of the sky. They must be miles from the shore. Summoning his courage, Yaltring climbed up onto the deck and, very, very quietly, walked towards Drengo. He almost reached the man’s back before his father turned around. "Yaltring!" His father stared at him in amazement. His fishing pole clattered to the deck. "What--where did you come from?" "I was down in the hold," Yaltring said nonchalantly. "For how long?" asked Drengo incredulously. "Since before you got on." Drengo’s amazement melted from his face. His eyebrows dropped, his wide eyes narrowed, and his expression became quiet. Then, slowly, little lines started to appear around his mouth, and a twinkle in his eyes; his lips pursed, his cheeks swelled, and suddenly, as if he could no longer help himself, he burst out laughing. He clapped Yaltring around the back. "Well, that was a pretty good trick!" he bellowed. "Serves you right, too--you’re going to have to spend the whole day at sea with me, since I don’t want to go all the way back now." Yaltring cheered loudly. "Oh, is that what you wanted?" said Drengo. "Well, then, I’ll have to think up some other punishment for you later." He glowered at Yaltring through a grin. "Well, you said you’d tell me more about this," said Yaltring, pulling the dark wooden statue he’d found the day before from his breeches pocket. "And, you said I’d learn about the Four Peoples from the capspool. You said all that yesterday, but you didn’t explain. And then, I heard you were going to be gone all day today, fishing. So I thought it was only fair." "Oh, so is that what’s bothering you? Well, then I guess I might as well explain it to you, now that you’ve finagled your way aboard." Drengo chuckled again. "In future, I’m going to have to check the hold before I sail. Have you eaten anything?" "Yeah. But what is it?" Yaltring shook the statue in his hand. "Something I’ve had for a long time. It’s a keepsake that was passed on to me by my father, in my own capspool, when I was a boy. My grandfather got it from his father, back in the North Country, where the capspool is no secret but an everyday thing." Drengo smiled. "I was going to give it to one of your brothers, but you seemed to take more interest in the Four Peoples. Keep it well." Yaltring stared at the little piece of wood, Way-Goner’s words--it is you who will bring the Four together--echoing in his ears. "So this is about the Four Peoples?" "Well, it has to do with them." "But who are they?" Yaltring asked, pointing at the figures. "Those," said Drengo, "are the five Giants of the Lower World, as they were long ago, before the rising of the seas. Beneath their feet is the Great Egg of the Deep Realm, and of course above their heads is the Middle World, where we are." Yaltring’s eyes were wide. "Are there really giants?" He had heard of them before, but not discussed so seriously. "Yes, there are." "Do they really live underneath us?" "Oh, yes. They’re what’s holding us up." Yaltring’s eyes widened even more. He thought for a while. "What happens if they move?" he said. "Well, they can’t--at least, not as things are now. See the bumps on top? Those are the Four Lands, where the Four Peoples lived before the Mainland was formed. If you look underneath"--he jabbed his finger below the top of the statue, "you can see that the giants have their heads caught in the sky above them, the sky of the Lower World, which is the bedrock of our own. They’re stuck fast." "But how did they get stuck?" asked Yaltring. "You really want to know that?" "Yeah, and what happened to the Four Lands?" "Ah!" said Drengo. "Well, I’d better get more bait. This is a long story." From the beginning, a giant-woman has dwelt in the Deep Realm, holding it up with her body. Her name is One Root. She is so great that she stretches across all four corners, from top to bottom and end to end. Of living beings, she is the biggest. Even mountains are nothing next to her; even continents do not match her. It is said that when she dies, the world will crumble around her, and all things come to an end. But long is her life, because for her an age is no more than the chasm from earth to sky, and all seems small to her eyes. Lonely she was in the great abyss of the Deep, towering high above everyone else; and long ago, no one knows just when, she took a lover from amongst the smaller beings at her feet. She conceived, and grew even larger, and the creatures that live there, the Deep Beings, had to hide in the corners to keep from getting squashed. At last, after an immense time, she gave birth to five sons. One Root knew she could never live in one world with them. Now her sons were small, but when they grew up they would be so big that the Deep Realm would burst. So while they were still newborns, she broke a piece loose from the egg-roof above and stuck her sons through it, up into the Lower World. There they lay, wrinkled and barely able to move, but already big as grown men. Umba, Indeh, Ohnon, Ama, and Essin were their names. They were all fearsome; but Umba and Essin, the first and last born, were the biggest and strongest of them all. Now, this was back in the days when the Middle World held only an empty sea. The people of that time all lived in the Lower World with the giants. At first, they hardly noticed the hefty babies. Soon, though, the giants were crawling about, getting bigger all the time. It wasn’t long before they began to walk. By that time, they towered far above the rooftops. People learned to stay away, and ran fast when they saw them coming. But many were crushed beneath the giants’ feet, and once a whole town had to be rebuilt in a different place after a giant blew his nose over it. Finally, the giants grew so big that their heads almost reached the sky. The people became terribly worried, and conferred amongst themselves. "They are going to smash the sky," they said to one another, "and the world will be destroyed by the falling pieces, and there will be no shelter from the Great Abyss above. We must stop them!" "Ah, must we?" said the craftiest person then alive. "I am an old, weak man. But I’d have a better chance to whip all our young men than they’d have together against even one giant. We can’t make the giants do anything." "But we’ve got to act now. They run around heedless, smashing everything!" someone shouted. "Everything?" said someone else. "Worse than that! Yesterday, one of them stepped on my cousin. They must be stopped!" "All very well," said the old man. "But we can’t get things done by force. We’re going to have to persuade them." There were cries of surprise from the crowd, who by now were riveted by the old man’s calmness and assurance. "You mean, talk to the giants?" "It’s our only hope," said the old man. "They need to stop stomping around. But even that won’t be much good when their heads hit the sky, which will be soon the way they’re growing. Nope, we’re going to have to talk them into lying down. Anyone who’s too afraid to do it, ought to think about what’ll happen otherwise!" All the same, the people were very afraid. They talked it over, back and forth, for hours. Nobody really wanted to speak to a giant, but finally they agreed on a plan. Promising him rewards and glory, they sent their bravest hero to climb the highest mountain. When he reached the top, he turned toward the nearest giant and in a quavery voice called out, "Ho, Giant!" The giant turned around, looking surprised. "What do you want, little thing?" he asked. The hero explained their fears. He told the giant that the people would bring the giants anything their hearts desired, if only they would lie down and be still. The giant thought for a moment and said, "Well, there’s only one thing I want, and that’s to have my back scratched. I can’t reach it, and my brothers are too lazy!" The giant spoke then with the other giants, booming in his huge voice across the world, and reported back to the man on the mountaintop. "They all say the same. We’ll lie down for you if you’ll scratch our backs." "It’s a deal," said the man. So the giants lay on their bellies, and people climbed over them like ants and scratched their backs with great logs; and the giants didn’t move, except once in a while a little shiver when it felt especially good; and then all the people on their backs shook and swayed like insects on a blowing leaf, and were terrified. And for a long time the people prospered, though the work of scratching was tedious and required many women and men. After a while, Essin said, "Hmmmm, I feel very relaxed now. I’m getting sleepy." He yawned and stretched, very nearly killing the people on his back as they frantically scrambled away. Then he rolled away from the other giants and went to sleep. It wasn’t until ages later, with Essin still soundly slumbering, that the other giants suddenly started to grumble. "All right, we’ve had enough scratching!" they said. "Get down!" They waited till the scratchers got clear--and then they sat up. Now, even while they were lying there, the giants had been growing, and had reached their full height. They were none of them as big as their mother, but even so, when they sat up, their heads hit the sky. There was a terrible ripping and grating noise as the sky gave way. Just above each giant’s head, the sky crumbled into rocks and dirt, and tumbled down into his hair and face and eyes. Their heads kept going up, making four little holes in the barrier between Lower and Middle Worlds. Through each of the holes now flowed the ocean, pouring down from the Middle World, drenching the giants in streams of salty water. It washed away some of the dirt, but that hardly made the giants happy. The water trickled into their eyes and blinded them, and dribbled down their cheeks and tickled them. Meanwhile, the great heads pushed up the sky of the Lower World, bending it into four underwater mountains in the Middle World above. At last the mountains shot up through the seas into the open air. And where there had been only water with a seabed beneath, now there were four lands amidst the ocean. Each land had a hole in it, now thankfully on dry ground, so that no more water fell through. But by that time the damage had been done. The Lower World was flooded in torrents of salty rain. The giants felt a dampness at their toes and were uncomfortable, but for the people below it was a catastrophe. Many drowned. Some stayed alive clinging to pieces of wood, for they did not know how to make boats. In the Lower World, water only welled up from underground; none before that time had ever known rain, nor seen a sea or river or lake. Other folks fled to high ground. But in the end, even the highest was overcome by the swelling waters, and the people had no refuge save to climb onto the giants. They walked while they could, or floated when dry land was gone, clinging, wet and terrified, to the ankles of the great ones. There they were safe from the flood, for the time being. But they had little food, or water good to drink, and were petrified lest the giants should feel them and slap at their feet with their great arms. They could not stay for long where they were. On the giant Indeh, there was a man called Loosehand. He was very hungry; but he’d already eaten all the food he had with him. So he took a piece of his wife’s food when she wasn’t looking, even though she had brought no more than he. His wife warned him, "Loosehand, I will forgive you, because you are hungry. But do not steal from me again." But a little while later, Loosehand grew so hungry that he felt he could no longer bear it. So he snuck up behind his young son and tried to snatch the food out of his hand. But the boy clenched it and started screaming and crying. His mother came at once, and told Loosehand, "This is even worse. How can you steal from your own child? Be off, before I make you black and blue!" And she smacked him in the face. There was nothing poor, foolish Loosehand could do. Everyone around was staring back at him with disapproving gazes. So he ran, away from all the people crowded, miserable and hungry, on the giant Indeh’s lower shanks. Up and up he went, across the long calf, over the huge mountains of Indeh’s knee, along the broad plains of his thigh, and the far fields of his belly, and the rocky slopes of his chest, till at last he felt he could go no farther. He lay down to rest in a little nook in the giant’s neck, and looked down. It was a long, long way. Then he looked up, and what he saw amazed him. Glimmering just above Indeh’s mighty head, there was a small patch of light, white and brightly shining. He climbed up further to see what it was. Finally, when he’d reached the very top of the head, he came to an opening in the sky, big enough for a man to crawl through. He poked his own little head through the hole, and about him he saw a wide world, dry and serene, stretching far out into the distance, lit by the Sun above, which he had never seen, and a blue dome hanging over everything, bright and beautiful. Loosehand was very excited by his discovery, because it offered hope of life for himself and his people. But he thought, "Who will believe that I have climbed to the head of a giant, me, a thief and an outcast?" So he took out his hunting knife, and very carefully clipped off a piece of one of Indeh’s hairs, thicker than his thumb, but short enough to carry in his hand. Eagerly, Loosehand raced down the giant, nearly killing himself several times in his haste. He finally reached a small group of people, huddled together just above Indeh’s ankle, and explained to them what he’d found. They gazed back with doubt in their eyes, torn between hope and disbelief. Then he took out the hair. It glowed with the inner light possessed only by those born in the Deep Realm, and it was brown, not black like Indeh’s body hairs. Their eyes became round, their excitement grew, and they took it from Loosehand to show to their friends. There was a great commotion, as the news, and the hair, passed swiftly from hand to hand amongst the people. Everyone gathered together what little they had left and prepared to leave their world behind. Soon they were swarming up Indeh, tickling the poor giant, who fortunately was stuck very fast and could not turn his head to see the little people. He thought the tiny pricks on his skin were just goosebumps from the cold water. When he shivered, the climbers had to grab his hairs and hold on for dear life to keep from being thrown off into the waters far below. When at last they came out into the Middle World, the people named their new land Indeh, after the giant whose body held it up, bearing them to it. One of the people brought with him the piece of Indeh’s hair. That man later became the King of Indeh, whom they call the First King, and the hair was his Scepter, token of the discovery of another world, by which the Indeh people were saved from certain death. Later it passed on as an heirloom of the Northern Princedom. No one knows who has it now. But as long as Indeh lives, it will continue to glow, even in the darkest night. Meanwhile, those stranded on the other giants had seen thousands of people, tiny in the distance, crawling up the great light of Indeh, like black ants on a block of ice in the sunset. Then they saw the ants disappear! "An anthole they must have," people said. So scouts were sent up to see if their giants, too, had left them a way out. Soon, the scouts returned, telling the people to follow. The way was hard; small children had to be carried, and many of the old, too weak to climb but too heavy to be held, had to be left to die on a giant’s shinbone. But most of the people made their slow and strenuous way, until at last they came through one of the four doors in the earth, out into the Middle World, where we now live. It is not told what happened to the people perched on Essin, from whose great slumbering carcass there was no way up. Perhaps some of them managed to sail on scraps of wood to another giant. But the rest must have perished there, alone in the deeps, their only choices starving or drowning. Even those who made it above were sad at first for the many dead. But great was their joy in finding open land, filled with sunlight and starlight, after the long crowding in the Lower World, where the dim, ruddy murk of the giant-light was brightened only by torch-fire. And they brought with them plants and beasts that might nourish the soil and fill the land, and found that already there were fish, spawned from Shulaff’s belly, and birds that had flown before them, and a few growing things that had floated up on spores. And the people were content, and began to spread out across their new world. That is how there came to be Four Lands, and also Four Peoples, each descended from the squatters on a giant’s ankles. Yet they never met the others, for their Lands were separated by wide seas. The Lower World became a desolate place of ocean, as it still is today, and none but the giants live there, save a few lonely eyeless fishes in the deeps. Peace had come to the world, since four of the giants were stuck in place, and the fifth was asleep. For thousands of years, the world stayed as it was. At last Essin stirred. He stretched out, groaning and muttering, and said, "Ah! I’ve had a good night’s sleep. Time to get up!" His even bigger brother Umba called out to him, "Don’t do that! You’ll get stuck, like us!" "Oh, really?" shouted Essin. "I must be stronger than you, then. I can’t get stuck no matter what I do. I’ll stand all the way up and raise the roof. See!" And with that, he rose. Then Umba got very angry and said, "You won’t outdo me! I’m the oldest and strongest of the brood!" And he, too, tried to rise. There was a terrible grinding, as the two giants strove with each other to rise the highest. Both used their hands and heads to push mightily at the sky above them. Umba managed to force his head up further, and rose to one knee; but now he was stuck even tighter than before. Essin also got up on one knee. The earth lifted hugely above him. His brawny back heaved, his head dug deep into the sky, but he could not rise to his feet. For hundreds of years, the contest of the slow giants raged. In our Middle World above, the Land of Umba, which had been small, like all the Four Lands, rose and became vast, as shallow sea beds turned to dry earth. But powerful though he was, Umba was tired from all those ages of holding up the land, while Essin was fresh and rested. Thus in the end, the Land of Essin, raised from the bottom of the sea, became the largest in the world. No people came into it, though, and no one has yet learned where it is, someplace in the vast unknown sea-reaches. But as the lands of Umba and Essin rose, they pushed the waters aside, making the ocean deeper. The displaced seas drowned the other three lands, Indeh, Ohnon, and Ama, and only islands were left as remnants of their old highlands. Now all five giants are stuck fast. And let us hope they remain so, at least for a very long time. Thousands more years it has been, which is only enough for a long nap, for a giant. But if ever they shift again, the world will be unbalanced. "So they’re just sitting there now?" asked Yaltring, looking out over the water. "Sure are," said Drengo. "The earth over there, and the seabed below us, are resting on their shoulders." Yaltring frowned. "The giants acted sort of like Wengo, only not as mean. Maybe more like my brothers when they have fights." "Yes. Fortunately, your brothers are a little bit smaller." Yaltring laughed, then looked thoughtful. "The giants seem dumb and selfish," he said. "Well, you must remember that they are really just like children. They are full-grown, yes, but nobody ever brought them up or looked after them. Their mother abandoned them, and everyone else was afraid and stayed away. So no one ever taught them any common sense, let alone manners." "Well, I hope they don’t burp," said Yaltring, peering over into the briny green. "Probably cause an earthquake and make this boat turn over." His father chuckled. "Well, now, there might be some truth in that, according to what some folks say. When they had a bunch of earthquakes in Karahasa, they blamed it on a giant having the hiccups." "Which giant is under us, Daddy?" "That, I don’t know. The lands have changed a lot since people first came into the Middle World, no one knows just how. It’s been a long time--as we reckon things, anyway. "You see, Yaltring, all this was only a game to the giants, at least until they got stuck, and even then it was just an annoyance, lasting a little while, in their terms. But for us, it is life and death. All we’ve got rests on a giant’s head, and if he tossed it, then, like the poor scratchers, we’d be thrown off. This world, the sea, the land, that seem so solid and great--" he gestured in a full circle around them, "is really but a makeshift, lasting for a time, long to us, short to them. And when it ends, it ends." "When will it end?" "Maybe not for many, many ages. When are we going to die? We all know we will, and yet, we never know when. I could die this very hour, but probably I will live many more years. Who knows?" Drengo looked out over the open sea, shading his eyes. It stretched as far as could be seen in the north and west. To the east, there were no lands, and the sea stretched on till the end of the world. South was little Imme, a small break within an enclosing water. The boat rocked gently in the balmy breeze. "But wait a moment," Yaltring asked suddenly. "After the seas rose, what happened to the Four Peoples?" "That’s a good question," Drengo said quietly. "Nowadays, there are Northerners, Southerners, Easterners, and Westerners, and they’ve carved up Umba between them. But which of them comes from which land? And where are the islands that they left behind? I never met anyone who knew, though I wondered a lot, when I was young and wandering over the sea." "But what about Essin?" the boy asked. "Doesn’t anybody live there?" "No people--just birds and fish, probably. I’ll tell you what, though, you stowaway rascal--since you’re so bent on the waves! If you can figure out where it is, we’ll sail there together and discover it." A big grin filled Yaltring’s face. "Really?" "Yeah. But first we’ll have to stop off and let the others know where we’re going," said Drengo, winking. "Oh, that’s okay," said Yaltring. "We can just take them with us. There’d be room enough there for everybody--even Himak!" Drengo laughed and tousled the boy’s hair. "Well, I don’t know about that. I doubt your mother would want to sail that far. She likes it best when there’s land’s beneath her feet, and the moon above her." "Didn’t the moon use to be in the Deep Realm too?" "Yes, that she did, but you won’t learn the full story till you’re made a man. It’s not told to children. But it’s because she was born in the Egg that she’s so bright." "What would happen if we went down there? Would we be bright too?" "No one can say," said Drengo solemnly, "since it’s never happened. Many creatures climbed up through the hole One Root made, but none could ever go down. She would raise her thumb to block them, like a sheer mountain cliff, so they wouldn’t learn the Unspeakable Word, carved into the very ground of the Deep Realm since the beginning of time. Only Deep Beings know it, and any who swears by it is bound forever, and can never be released from their promise, nor break it by any effort of will. And ever since the Lower World got flooded, she’s left her thumb in there for good, to keep the water out of the Egg. "So no one’s ever gotten into the Deep Realm from the outside--except for old Big Beak, a Deep Being of course and the first of all to leave. He didn’t stay out for long! I don’t know what kind of a beak he had, but maybe he was really a big chicken." Yaltring giggled. "But how do we know anything about the Deep Realm, then?" "From the stories passed down from our ancestors, all the way from First Mother and Father, the earliest to leave for good, and First Pine, father of all trees. And, too, they say you can catch glimpses of that strange world when you dream. There are folks who have powerful dreams that cut deep under. Some live in a trance almost the whole time. They say they know the insides of that Egg better than the way to their front door--if they’ve got the sense to have one, that is! I met one old Dreamer in Pana, and she just sat around outside all the time, no matter what the weather, staring off into space. The only time I ever saw her move was once when she got stuck in the mud, and her admirers had to yank her out." He paused, and glanced at the line. "These fish don’t seem to want to bite, do they?" As if following the sights of a capspool, Yaltring’s eyes traced the line’s direction straight across the water. It led south, directly to land. From far away Imme looked bright and green. He thought he could even make out some of the houses, Afa ones from their location, straggled higgledy-piggledy a little ways from the shore, with palm trees between them, waving minutely in a far-away breeze. A frown came over his face, and he was silent. "What’s wrong?" Drengo asked. "I hate Kazo," Yaltring muttered, scowling at the waves. "I don’t know how to face him in the village now. I wish I never had to see him again. He’s been mean ever since I can remember, and he’s just getting worse." "Unfortunately, most of the villagers encourage it," said Drengo quietly, "or else it would be easily mended. They say we need a strong hand among the boys, but his strength is only in force and bluster. That’ll never lead to more than a sniveling manhood. The only strength worth having, Yaltring, is to stick by your word, and remember your own oughts as quickly as another’s, even when you’re up against it. Kazo is spoiled, and most likely will be until he’s a man and somebody stands up to him. Then he’ll have to start all over." "The other two are worse," Yaltring said darkly. "At least Kazo can see when he’s beat. Wengo has the brains of a bull." "I don’t know their folks as well," said Drengo, "but like many of their village-mates they are raised to be wild. A fierce lot, the Shaxa folk, by all reckoning, and the source of many a quarrel here. They no doubt will come in handy, though, if anyone ever attacks the island!" He chuckled at the thought. "Why wouldn’t they give in? Are they brave, or crazy? I thought for a while they were going to fight you!" "Wengo and Uggort didn’t stay because they were brave, Yaltring. They stayed because they were afraid. They’ve been taught that running away is the worst disgrace. Bullying and thieving, it seems, are not a problem. "Their kin will not treat them kindly when they find out what happened. It shames their honor. The boys will be tempted to take it out on you, but their folks will forbid it, probably with cruel threats. Besides, I’m having a word with them tomorrow--Kazo’s folks too. I will see to it that nothing further happens." Drengo put his hand on Yaltring’s shoulder, and a dark look, almost a smirk, came across his face. "But," he continued, "it’s best not to arouse more jealousy. So, I think I have figured out your punishment. We will not do the capspool any more." "Daddy!" Yaltring shouted in alarm. "No, it’s not so bad. I doubt I could make it hard enough for you in a year’s time anyway, not on this small island. No, starting today, I’m going to teach you something better. I’m going to teach you how to sail." Yaltring’s eyes widened. He already knew something of boatcraft, as did all children his age, but they did not usually begin to sail on their own until they were at least ten, more often eleven--sometimes older for children slow to learn, or too wild at what they did. Imme’s surrounding waters are calm on most days. But the sea is a treacherous master. "I’ll be able to sail now, Daddy?" he gasped. "Not to sail now--I have to teach you how to sail, first. Otherwise, your mother will kill me, and the seas will probably kill you at around the same time. It’s not so easy as all that." "When can I sail alone?" "When you’ve learned." His father smiled. "Not to worry--you’re a fast learner. You wouldn’t really want to sail without knowing how, would you?" Yaltring thought for a while, as a gust blew over him from the empty east. He saw himself driven by that same wind, speeding alone across the sea, headed for unknown waters; and a smile crept over his face. Then he saw a storm gather, far from any land; and great waves, each more dangerous than the meanest village bully, one after another, with nothing to save him but his own skill. "No, I wouldn’t," he confessed in the end, a bit ashamed. "That is good! I have a wise son. Not--to be honest--" Drengo’s voice fell conspiratorially, "like all my sons at your age." Yaltring smiled. "Better a wise landsman," Drengo continued, "than a drowned fool at sea. However, you will not be a landsman for long." He brandished the fishing pole. "Let’s wait for the next catch, and then we can get started." He leaned back in the wind, and it took his lazy hair, streaming it out behind him in the seaways of the air. And Yaltring closed his eyes, feeling that same breeze wash over his face, feeling a great world, far beyond the span of vision, opening up through the sea. N E X T . . . |
| CONTENTS | |
| Chapter I | A Gift of Moon |
| Chapter II | A Stranger's Visit |
| Chapter III | Message From the Sky |
| Chapter IV | The Story of the Giants |
| Chapter V | Dream of a Whale |
| Chapter VI | Under a Full Moon |
| Chapter VII | Memories of the Heart |
| Chapter VIII | Secrets of the Earth |
| Chapter IX | Alkhartren |
| Chapter X | Two Trails |
| Chapter XI | Neighbors |
| Home page | of The Noonday Sun |
| About | the book and its author |
| Contact me | if you'd like |