‘So you’re a bit like God in that contradiction you told me about? Good but powerless?’
‘On the Earth plane, yes. Almost powerless.’
‘Almost – but not completely?’
‘Sometimes,’ said the Angel, ‘I can perform miracles.’ She sounded wistful, not boastful.
‘Miracles? Like in the Bible?’
‘By definition they’re exceptional phenomena that don’t occur often – and this quite exactly describes all my attempts to intervene physically on the Earth plane. At rare intervals – when I work the magic – I’m able to step down and do something excellent. But with such unreliable access to physical power I can’t use it to influence events on any significant scale in such a realm. I must reach out to people through their dreams and visions – as I have done with you – when I want to do that. In other words, I must work through human consciousness.’ She sighed: ‘And unfortunately that also raises huge problems …’
Leoni laughed, remembering the way she’d been before her near-death experience, the things she’d valued and enjoyed: ‘A lot of us live pretty much unconsciously,’ she said. ‘I did, for a long time.’
‘I would not say unconscious. I would say shackled, limited, tied down. You humans are spiritual beings in physical form who have fallen so deeply into the heavy material realm of Earth it has enchained your consciousness. You don’t remember your true origins, or the purpose of your incarnation. You imagine that the infinitesimally small section of the Totality you are able to know through your limited physical senses, and through instruments devised to extend them, is all that there is or ever will be to know. You are easily convinced you are just your bodies and there is no such thing as the soul, or if you do believe that the soul exists then you often do so blindly, according to religious dogmas rather than personal inquiry. You must understand, therefore, how frustrating it is for me, as a being of intelligent, conscious, non-physical energy, to have to deal with you. Except for the occasional miracle I cannot manifest physically in your realm. I should be able to reach you easily at the level of consciousness, but humanity’s imprisonment in matter is so complete that most of you block me out.’
‘You’ve reached me’
‘There are back doors. Certain naturally occurring substances, certain spontaneous states of brain chemistry, certain techniques and practices available to all humans, unlock the prison and set the spirit free.’
‘Like the Ayahuasca I drank tonight?’
‘Yes, or near-death experiences, or DMT, or psilocybe mushrooms, or the trance-dance of the Kalahari bushmen. When humans are in these extreme states of consciousness I can reach them, just the way I’ve reached you …’
‘But why do you want to do that?’ Leoni objected. ‘I don’t understand. Why do you feel that you have to reach us at all? Why not just leave us imprisoned in matter and go somewhere more interesting?’
The Angel smiled: ‘I can journey where and when I will across the Totality, but no world interests me more than my beautiful, precious Earth, and there is no intelligent species I value more highly than my wonderful, beloved, paradoxical, lost human race.’
‘The Earth I can understand.’ An image of the planet, indigo as the angel’s skin, filled with light, floating in the darkness of space, had come unbidden into Leoni’s mind: ‘It’s pretty amazing … But the human race? What’s so wonderful about us? We’re mostly monsters, Angel. You must know that. We dream up endlessly clever and horrible ways to kill and hurt each other and rip each other off. We’re murderers and rapists and liars and thieves. We’re sick, cruel, evil-minded killers.’
‘Yes. All those things.’
‘And yet we’re your “beloved”?’
‘What else would you be?’ the Angel asked. ‘You’re my children. My only children. I cannot stop loving you.’
Chapter Sixty
The river was two bowshots wide where it rushed past the camp and it flowed faster than most men could run. Ria knew this because in happier times the youth of the Clan had sometimes amused themselves by racing the Snake – a game that involved throwing a branch into the current and charging along the bank after it. The terrain was rough, filled with humps and waterlogged hollows, and only the fleetest of foot could match the current’s speed over distances of more than a thousand paces. Eventually even the best of them began to tire, but the river never did.
So Ria could see how the Uglies’ plan might have worked – how, in fact, it was already working for those now far ahead of them, and would have worked for her and her companions on the last jaala if they hadn’t waited for Jergat.
With a splash the front of the little vessel where the reindeer-skin float had been punctured lurched below the surface, sending an icy wave foaming over the wooden platform and soaking them all. Vulp was pinned by the spear that had killed him but the wave shoved his limp body sideways so his arms and head trailed in the water, acting as a further brake against the current and turning the jaala on an even more direct course towards the bank and the Illimani.
Brindle was still unconscious, strapped to the front of the platform on the left. Grondin and Oplimar struggled to influence the course of the jaala, plunging their wooden slabs into the river but to no effect. At the rear Bont sat brooding, his great war axe in his hand. Everyone else seemed dazed, scarcely acknowledging the prancing Illimani warriors on the bank. Their huge numbers, the terrible sounds they made, their joy in cruelty, their lust for blood, the hate and violence that seethed out of them – all these things had a stupefying intensity.
Ria could feel the weight of their malevolence like a physical assault but refused to give way. Gritting her teeth against the pain of her injuries, balancing against the bucking turns of the jaala, she edged forward through the spray to Vulp, got two hands on him and tried to push him free. But he wouldn’t budge. She didn’t see Driff moving to her aid, but suddenly he was beside her, reaching down into the skin of the punctured float to free the tip of the spear. It tore loose and they heaved Vulp into the current, his long white hair streaming out behind him as he sank.
The explosion of action seemed to break the evil spell that had fallen over them all. Relieved of Vulp’s weight, the front right-hand side of the jaala bucked clear of the water for a moment before splashing down again and, as though waking from sleep, everyone came alive to their plight. ‘We need to move back,’ Grondin pulsed urgently to Ria. He was already untying Brindle from the frame. ‘Tell your people. Put weight on back, lift front up.’
‘Why?’
‘Just do it or we all dead.’
With Jergat’s help, Grondin dragged Brindle to the rear and wedged him between Bont and Rotas. Oplimar and Ligar were already there and now Driff and Ria leapt to join them. The shift in weight raised the front right-hand side of the jaala out of the water a second time, much higher than before. It didn’t crash back and suddenly the little craft was on a smooth course again, skipping along the surface of the river on three of its four floats.
They’d drifted close to shore while they’d careened out of control, but now Grondin and Oplimar steered them back out towards midriver again.
Howls of disappointment rose up from their pursuers.
For the first time Ria allowed herself to hope. She was daydreaming of the bloody punishment she would inflict on the Illimani when the lashed branches forming the floor of the platform rolled beneath her, a rope snapped, a gap suddenly opened and she plunged up to her armpits in the freezing river. At once Oplimar’s callused hands shot out, caught her by her hair and the shoulder of her jerkin, and pulled her back up.
The bumping and jostling sent fresh surges of pain through her head and side and reopened the spear wound in her thigh, but there were more urgent concerns.
Ria saw now that the way the nine of them were riding the jaala would soon destroy it. She shivered with cold from the soaking she’d taken. To keep the front right-hand side out of the water they’d clustered towards the left and rear
of the fragile craft, twisting it along its central axis. If another of the ropes binding the platform snapped then the whole thing would disintegrate.
Still shivering, Ria squinted over her shoulder. They’d nearly reached midstream. No more of the fearsome spears had been thrown – they must indeed have been left strewn, as yet uncollected, on the meeting ground. Most of the Illimani had dropped back and only a handful now kept pace with them along the bank.
There was time to risk a repair.
Ria and Grondin decided what needed to be done and had their companions rebalance themselves on the loose, unstable platform, allowing it to fall level. With no float to support it, the front right-hand side dived again, slowing the little craft’s progress. As before it rotated instead of pursuing a straight course, and began to move back across the current towards the shore.
The punctured reindeer-skin float and the floor of the platform right above it had to go. Once these were removed there would be nothing left on that side for the current to drag under water. They set Bont to work on the problem, breaking the floor one branch at a time, very carefully and precisely so as not to hasten the disintegration of the whole jaala. Meanwhile Grondin and Oplimar drew rope from their shoulder packs and began to rebind the loose branches tightly.
They worked until their fingers bled, but the constant rotation and juddering wrenched knots apart as soon as they were tied and for too long they seemed to be making no progress.
Ria looked up at the bank and drew in her breath. Her attention had been so focused on the desperate struggle to save the jaala she hadn’t noticed how close they’d drifted.
(Too close.)
The Illimani they’d outdistanced earlier were back with them, shouting and jeering, boiling out along the bank.
Ria’s first fear was they might somehow have rearmed themselves with enough of their deadly spears to throw a volley. But instead she was astounded to see a dozen of the pursuing braves grip knives between their teeth, jump into the river and swim out into the current. Two of them … three … then a fourth were dragged under by the turbulent waters but the others were powerful swimmers – better than the best in the Clan – and began to gain on the crippled rotating jaala.
Ria felt Jergat at her side. He held out her five quartz hunting stones, wrapped in a bloodied cloth. She took them from him and placed them back in their deerskin pouch, keeping one in her right hand.
Then she stood up.
‘You still have two arrows left?’ she asked Ligar.
‘Yes, but my bow’s useless. The string’s wet. I won’t be able to shoot again until it dries.’
The Illimani braves were closing in, swimming like otters; if all eight of them swarmed the jaala they’d tear it apart. Ria hated to lose the stones, but there was no other option. She had to start picking them off in the water.
One brave led the others by a couple of body lengths, his bright blue eyes fixed on her, his pale wet hair glistening around his head in ringlets. Ria knew it wasn’t going to be an easy throw because of the erratic movements of the jaala and the pounding she’d taken, but she judged her moment and let fly. She gasped as new pain exploded in her side but the heavy little quartz egg slammed into the brave’s skull and he sank from view.
The other seven would soon overhaul them. Accepting the agony it cost her, Ria threw again, skimming the stone low across the water, aiming for a swimmer coming in fast from the right. There was a wet SMACK! and a burst of blood exploded from his nose. His eyes rolled up in his head and he was gone.
Ria knew the power and effectiveness of her throws was improving. Getting stronger. Getting more accurate. Was it the magic that Merina had put into her arms? Or was it the stones themselves? WHACK! She made her third throw, sending another man to the bottom. CRACK! Her fourth shot hit its target just above the ear. Blood blossomed and the brave wallowed in the water, threw up his arms and sank.
Now Ria had just one stone, the last of her gifts from Merina. Her fingers caressed it as she drew back her arm and threw. There was a solid CLUNK! and a fifth man disappeared beneath the surface.
Only three of the swimmers remained, but they were almost upon the jaala and still Grondin, Oplimar and Bont worked feverishly. ‘Driff!’ Ria yelled. But he’d already seen the danger and now he hurled his two tomahawks, one with his right hand, one with his left. The weapons cartwheeled as they flew across the water and their blades smacked – CLUNK! CLUNK! – into two of the bobbing heads.
Ria looked to the bank. It loomed terrifingly close and the Illimani clustered there began to howl and stamp their feet. Simultaneously the last swimmer drew level, grabbing for a handhold, and Bont finished his work on the platform, swept up his axe and killed the man with a single blow.
Without the impediment of the punctured float the jaala leapt forward. Grondin and Oplimar tied the last knot to strengthen the framework and picked up the steering slabs again. Everyone repositioned themselves, distributing their weight around the now much smaller platform.
Ria snatched a glance. They were once more outstripping their pursuers on the bank. Better still, they were approaching the next big bend in the river, a stretch she knew well. The land inside the elbow of the bend was treacherous and swampy, full of pitfalls and massively overgrown with thorns, brambles and stands of tall willows. It wouldn’t stop warriors like the Illimani but not even they were going to be able to get through those obstacles in a hurry.
She was starting to hope again when two more of the terrible short spears plummeted down on them out of the sky. One killed Rotas, entering between his shoulder blades and exiting through the centre of his chest. The other passed under Bont’s arm without causing injury but pierced and deflated the reindeer-skin float beneath him.
Now the break-up of the jaala became unstoppable. The individual branches in the floor of the platform rolled and separated, snapping their new ties, and everyone was dumped into the bitterly cold fast-flowing river.
Ria saw that Grondin was a poor swimmer. He didn’t ask for help but he was having trouble keeping Brindle’s head above water as well as his own. Then Bont surged towards them, somehow got his huge arms around them both, rolled on his back and used the long handle of his axe to draw them securely to him as he let the rushing current carry them. Ligar was also in difficulty but Jergat and Oplimar buoyed him up. Driff was swimming right by her side.
The freezing, foaming river had already begun to swirl them all into the start of the bend when Ria felt a peculiar prickling at the nape of her neck.
It wasn’t the cold.
She turned in the water to look behind.
Chapter Sixty-One
Leoni was confused. ‘You mean the whole human race?’
‘Yes,’ agreed the Angel. ‘That’s right.’
‘But how can we be your children? There’re billions of us.’
‘I didn’t say I gave birth to you.’
‘You adopted us?’
‘No, not that either.’
‘It’s like a riddle. We’re your children, but you didn’t give birth to us and you didn’t adopt us. So what did you do?’
‘I created you,’ said the Angel. ‘I created all life on Earth.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like God again.’
The Angel laughed. ‘I already explained that no being exists across the whole of reality who is all-powerful and all-good like the god of the Christians.’
‘And I suppose I just have to take your word for it?’
‘The effects of the medicine will wear off soon, Leoni, and you will return to the Earth-plane. There’s much I still have to tell you, so for now, yes, it will be simpler if you just believe me when I say that the creative and destructive powers of the Totality, the authors of truth and lies, good and evil, are all beings like myself – intelligent, conscious, non-physical energy. Sometimes we’ve been called gods, even worshipped as such, but human notions of angels, spirits and demons are a better fit. We came into existence with
the Totality but none of us have ever been able to discover with absolute certainty how or why we’re here. We have powers but we are by no means all-powerful at all levels of reality.’
‘If you can create life then you’re pretty powerful, Angel.’
‘Did I not tell you I perform miracles from time to time? Four billion years ago it was I who breathed the magic of spirit into the empty matter of Earth and wrote its code of life …’
‘You’re four billion years old?’
‘Much older,’ the Angel said. The screen of her laptop device displayed a kaleidoscope of swirling colours and Leoni found herself gazing down from the depths of space onto a fiery, barren, empty and lifeless world.
Then, slowly at first but soon speeding up, the character and colours of the planet began to change. Oceans covered it, land masses emerged, and Leoni zoomed in to see that life, in fantastic variety and abundance, was everywhere.
She could still hear the Angel’s voice: ‘After I manifested the first simple organisms, billions of years had to pass on the Earth-plane before creatures with sufficient intelligence to choose freely between good and evil could evolve. The first to do so was the human species.’
Abruptly, Leoni found herself seated in a classroom behind a wooden desk, looking at a big flatscreen monitor on the wall. It was displaying a graphic of a large tree with little shrewlike animals in the lowest branches, various kinds of lemurs and monkeys higher up, apes above them, followed by a number of progressively more human-looking creatures. At the top, the tree divided into two final branches, beside each of which appeared a superbly rendered three-dimensional human figure. One, labelled NEANDERTHAL, was stocky, heavily muscled, virtually neckless, chinless, big-nosed, beetle-browed and very ugly in a coarse, apelike way. The other, labelled CRO-MAGNON, tall, slim and well-muscled, with handsome sculpted features and a daring, intelligent glint in his eye, was a good-looking modern human being.