Clouds End

Then Kettle came down to the beach to look for clams, and she too stayed to look at the Bump.

  “I say,” Tool said. “Isn’t it getting bigger?”

  “Closer too,” said Wit.

  “It’s coming right for us,” said Swap. And suddenly he didn’t care so much about exciting things after all.

  As they watched, the Bump got taller, and wider, and bluer, and greener. It rolled over the ocean toward them, and its top was white with foam. It was very close now, and it made a sound like thunder growling.

  Wit said, “I’m not sure I like this.”

  And Tool said, “I wonder what it is.”

  And Kettle said, “Maybe we should eat now.”

  And Swap said, “I wish it would go away.”

  And Stand said nothing at all, but dove into the water and swam out to meet it.

  But the Bump picked him up and hurled him back onto the island and then rushed over the rest of them.

  Do you know what it was?

  (The village children looked at one another, frowning, trying to remember if they had ever heard this story before. Boots glanced back at the storm-clouds to the east and then turned to meet his mother’s eyes. “It was a wave.”)

  It was a wave!

  It was the first wave that had ever been. It rushed over the island and it gobbled up Kettle’s fire and it broke Tool’s toys and it swept away Swap’s beautiful collection of shells and stones and it made them all very wet and angry and out of breath. Worst of all, Stand was hurt, and lay groaning on the hard stone where the wave had thrown him.

  Wit was stuffed full of seawater and scraped from falling on the stones and madder than she had ever been in her whole life. While the others stumbled around in a daze wondering what had happened, she shook her fist at the departing wave and yelled “WHY?” at the top of her lungs. But when she held up her Big Blue Shell, all she heard was the sound of the water and the rock, just like you do when you’re standing on the beach. And this was the first time the world had refused to answer her questions. Then she grew very thoughtful, and a little bit scared.

  (The trees on the Ridge conferred, lamenting what the cold wind told them. Far to the east, a shadow crept over the water.)

  * * *

  Big Rope, Little Rope

  Swap wasn’t nearly so happy when he saw the second Bump as he had been the first time. He hurried back to tell the others, and they huddled together on the highest part of the island. Tool used his seaweed ropes to tie everyone to a tree so they wouldn’t be washed away, all except Stand, who said it was beneath his dignity.

  The wave was every bit as blue and green and wet and sputtery the second time. As soon as it was past and Wit could catch her breath, she called out “WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?”

  And the wave said, “From the sea.”

  It was Tool who saw the third wave, sitting at the top of the Tall Tree and looking through a bubble of Mist that let him see faraway things as if they were near.

  “This is becoming a nuisance,” Kettle muttered, for the waves always doused her fires, and she hated having to light them again.

  This time, as Kettle scraped the sand out of her pots and searched for firewood, Wit cried “WHO IS IT COMING FOR?” to the wave’s broad back.

  “You,” it said.

  “I don’t know why you keep asking these silly questions,” Stand said to Wit as the fourth wave approached. “We know what it is now. We won’t be fooled again.”

  Wit only frowned. “There is something coming,” she said.

  Stand scoffed. “When?”

  “We will see.” After the fourth wave passed she cried, “WHEN WILL IT HAPPEN?”

  “The Seventh Wave,” the sea’s voice said.

  “Now look here,” Tool said, taking Wit aside when the fifth wave came into view. “We need to be more exact about this Thing coming. Is it just another wave, or something different? Is it made of fire or fur or feathers? Is it longer than a stone or colder than an eel? Can it fit through a crab’s nose? How many bubbles does it weigh?” He wrinkled his nose at her and looked terribly superior. “In short, we need precision, Wit.”

  So as Wit watched the fifth wave roll by from her seat in Tool’s Tall Tree she called, “WHAT IS IT?”

  And the wave said, “Death.”

  (Even Pebble, who was almost old enough to mind herself, felt uneasy with the storm coming up behind their backs. Feather shivered in the cooling wind. Wordless, Boots reached out to hold his sister’s hand.)

  Everyone on the island was feeling very nervous. “Soup,” Kettle counselled. “Lots of good hot soup. That will help drive off any sickness that might be coming.”

  “I have been working on something that might help,” Swap said. “I hollowed out a tree with the knife that Tool gave me. When the wave comes, the wood will float and we can all be safe inside.”

  “Flying’s the answer,” Tool said sagely, squeezing the jellyfish tummies under his arms. “We will be safe in the sky.”

  But Stand said, “Why are you all cringing? We should meet this thing head on! If we let it master us now, it will master us forever.”

  Then they all fell to arguing, until Wit said, “I can see the sixth wave.” Then they were quiet. Wit grabbed hold of her Big Blue Shell. “I will learn what I can learn.”

  When the sixth wave went by she called, “HOW CAN WE BE SAFE?”

  But the wave said, “You cannot.”

  From the moment she saw the Seventh Wave, Wit felt as fragile as an eggshell. “Hurry!” she cried, running to find the others. “It is coming at last!”

  “Run to the log!” Swap said.

  He and Wit went to crouch within his hollow log. At first Kettle wanted to stay by her fire, for she had put in an especially yummy snake to boil. But as the wave got nearer and taller and blacker, she decided she could always boil snake another day.

  But even after they got Kettle to come into the hollow tree, they could not make Tool or Stand join them. “Flying!” Tool yelled. “It’s the only wise alternative!” He had clambered to the very top of the tallest tree, and hung there as it swayed in the rising wind, clutching his jellyfish tummies.

  As for Stand, he prowled the shore getting angrier and angrier. “Are we always to run from this thing?” he cried. “Is Tool not clever? Is Wit not wise? Am I not strong? I will fight this Death, whatever it is, and teach it that an islander must have respect!”

  Wit coaxed and Swap wheedled and Kettle cried, but they could not make Stand come into the hollow tree.

  The Seventh Wave got taller and darker and wider and colder, until the wind before it bent the treetops almost to the ground, and its roar was like a thousand thunders, and the black crest of it gobbled up the sun. But still Stand waited on the shore, shaking his mighty fist and yelling at the storm.

  Then the great wave fell upon Delta. It lifted up the hollow tree and flung it like a toy so that those inside were battered and bruised and breathless, and Wit was thrown out and had to cling to the stern and Kettle was tossed overboard and had to grab on to her pot. But Swap was safe inside his hollow piece of wood, and that is how the first boat came to be.

  As they floated, dazed above the black water, they saw Tool drifting by, coughing and spluttering. He never was brave enough to jump from his tree and fly, but the puffy jellyfish tummies he clutched under his arms had pulled him up to the surface after the great wave buried his tree.

  Swap pulled them all into his little boat, and pumped their backs until they spat out all the sea they had swallowed.

  Then something else floated by. ‘“Stand!” Kettle cried.

  But Stand was dead.

  Because the Seventh Wave cared nothing for his strength or his swimming or his anger. It had not even noticed he was there. It fell upon him like a thunderbolt and killed him dead.

  Tears streamed down Wit’s face as she looked at Stand’s broken body and she felt her heart would break. “WHY!!”

  But though she held her Big Blue S
hell to her ear and listened as hard as she could, the world never answered.

  * * *

  “That’s a sad story,” Pebble said.

  Brook nodded. “Yes, but it’s a true one. And Wit and Tool and Kettle and Swap lived past the Seventh Wave, and you all know stories about their adventures. We have much nicer boats now than Swap did then, and nobody has to eat fried snakes anymore. As long as you respect the world, and know its strength, you can have lots of adventures too.”

  The children nodded, round-eyed.

  “Next time I will tell a funny story,” Brook said, suddenly feeling awful. Her stupid story had been too grim. It made her heart ache to see the children looking up at her, their little faces so uncertain. Maybe they were better off believing only good things.

  “You can’t sail if you don’t know where the rocks are,” Boots said solemnly.

  Brook looked up at him, startled and grateful.

  Then she saw someone walking across the rocks to join them. It was Jo. The children scooted to the side to let the haunt through. She smiled, white hair billowing and snapping before her face, blown by the wind rising from the east.

  A whip of Mist cracked in Brook’s blood.

  Jo was gaunt, thin and fierce as lightning. Fire sparked behind her eyes. “Did I miss the story?” she said, reaching down to stroke Feather’s hair with her long white fingers.

  “Don’t touch her.”

  Jo’s eyes were two golden flames. “You should give me something, Brook. It would not take much to make me happy.”

  Out on the sea, ships hurried home, disappearing around the Talon on their way to the leeward docks. Their sails cracked in the gusting wind.

  Feather’s blond braid lashed around her small face in the rising breeze. “Storm’s coming,” she said.

  The last of the fishing boats were in and their sails were down. Rope, Stone, Seal, and Sharp pulled the smaller sloops up the shingle and carried them into the boathouse. Moss and Foam went from boat to boat with the older children, fitting each with extra floats to keep their hulls from slamming against the dock.

  The swell was running high. The dock creaked and groaned with each tall green roller. Halyards and hawsers thrummed in the wind. “A real spring gale!” Rope yelled.

  “Yep.” Stone followed close behind, hoping they could get three more boats up before the storm hit.

  The first peals of thunder broke overhead, crashing over the island like gigantic waves. Shandy jumped up from the table, staring at the shutters.

  Moss stamped in, slamming the door. Rain dripped from his beard as he put a long arm around her. “It’s only the thunder, old woman.”

  Shandy snorted.

  “You never did like storms much,” Moss chuckled. “I always liked the show.”

  Shandy paced, stumping grimly from one end of the room to the other, freezing at each flash of lightning, holding her breath until the thunder exploded overhead. “I made Brook promise you the house after I am gone, Witness Tower or no.”

  “You aren’t going anywhere in a hurry,” Moss said, taking off his dripping tunic and hanging it on the mantel to dry.

  “When she needs to do a Watching, she can ask your permission. That’s all there is to it. I am not going to see you moved out of your own home”—lightning ripped the sky and the clouds roared in agony—“just for Witnessing,” Shandy whispered.

  Moss came to stand behind her. “Brook would never throw me out.” He slid his hands around his wife’s stomach and held her close. “You know that.”

  “By Wit’s Ear she won’t.”

  The gale fell on Clouds End, rattling at Shandy’s windows as if trying to tear her home apart. She felt Moss, big and safe behind her.

  “It got dark so fast,” she said.

  CHAPTER 26

  THE TWO HEROES

  TWO DAYS later on a morning grim with rain, Rope’s cousin Bass beat around the Talon to bring them a visitor. It was Seven.

  Foam was puttering around the dock when they landed. Seven helped Bass furl his sails and hopped out of the boat. He gripped Foam by the shoulders. “Well met, Lieutenant.”

  “Astonishment! Amazement! Wonder! You look good,” Foam said. But Seven was older, far older than he had been. The smooth, clear expression Foam had known was gone. The Deltan was tough and wind-tanned. Thirst and privation had carved deep lines around his mouth and eyes and his smile was hard. He wore pants and a shirt like a woodlander. “What brings you to Clouds End?”

  “You do!” Seven laughed again. “I have set my sail for the Mist. I thought I would stop by and see you on my way. Come help me unload my gear while Bass visits with his family. I had no wish to sail out to the edge of the world alone, so I have been crewing on any ship who would take me through the whole summer. It was many moons before I found any who had even heard of Clouds End.”

  Foam clambered aboard.

  “My father told me you have dined with him in Delta a time or two,” Seven said.

  “Well, you know Shale. It was her idea to start trading to the mainland. She is the wind in our sails.”

  “Trading with the forest people.”

  “The war is over,’ ” Foam said.

  “And the dead stay dead.”

  Seven had a woodlander sword belted at his side. It swung in time with his strides.

  ‘“Long trip?” Foam asked.

  Seven shrugged, pulling open the cargo hatch. “Hm. Plains, mountains. Even trekked through the great Northern Desert for a while. A long voyage. Of course, every voyage is long when you have no harbor to come home to.”‘

  “Whatever happened to the man who wanted to save the islands? The patriot? I never thought General Seven cared about things out of sight of the sea.” Foam went down the narrow ladder into Bass’s small cargo hold. He collected a load of winter gear stowed behind a tall fuseware vase with a silver plug.

  Seven came down to the hold, crowding Foam into the bulkhead as he bundled up a mound of clothes and blankets. It was very dark belowdeck, and the wind cried softly over the hatchway. “Back then I had more to care about.”

  “I am sorry about Pond.”

  Seven shrugged. “It is the way of the world. But you can never surrender. You keep fighting.” As he started up the ladder his body blocked the hatchway, and the light failed.

  He was waiting when Foam climbed out of the hold. “Actually, you touch on the reason tor my trip. After years of wandering I thought to myself that if there was one place where the dead could be brought back to life, it would be in the Mist.”

  “Seven—”

  “Do I disturb you?”

  “No. No, of course not.”

  Seven hopped nimbly from the boat. “I thought I would take Pond to the Mist to see what could be done. Stonefinger is said to have power over death. And who knows what the Singer could do?”

  “She has been dead for years, Seven.”

  “I know. I brought her ashes. Easy to carry that way. I doubt she minds much.” Seven turned and gave Foam a hand out of the boat. ‘“She is in that fancy bottle, the one with the silver top. Whatever you do, don’t pour that into the lamps some dark night!” He was still laughing as he stepped off the dock and started for the village.

  The east wind sobbed, pulling an endless stream of tears from the clouds as another storm gathered overhead.

  By the next day all traces of the storm had gone and the sky no longer leaked. Mountains of puffy white cloud towered overhead, ceaselessly refashioned by the wind.

  Seven prowled through Clouds End, watching the villagers repairing the damage the storm had done. Foam was fixing boats; Shale straddled her mother’s roof, plugging leaks. Brook he found working in the herb garden with Finch and Swallow. “And of course all the time he acts as if the rain were my fault,” Finch was saying.

  Swallow laughed. “I won’t see Seal for a week! Not while his precious boat needs nursing.”

  The ivory comb that Stick had whittled for Brook’s wed
ding gleamed cloud-white as she smiled up at Seven. After meeting him the day before, she had decided that all the things Foam and Shale had said over the years were true. He was meant to be a legend. The Mist was in him; you needed no magic to see that. “Good morning, honored guest.”

  “Good? You people seem not to understand what has happened to you. Can’t you see how much work there is? Work just to get back to where you were three days ago.”

  Brook looked down at the mud where her garden had been. Springs of chamomile huddled with chastened yellow heads, giving off a sweet, bruised smell.

  “Two ships sunk, most of the others damaged, the dock skewed, the gardens wiped out.” Seven squatted down beside a clump of muddy rue. “The sea is cruel.”

  Brook caught a curious glance from Finch and shook her head ever so slightly, wondering why Seven had to make the hard job of being happy harder. “I guess this would be a disaster on Delta. Here on Clouds End the sea keeps us in our place.”

  “Or floods us out of it!” Swallow said.

  Brook tended another sprig of rue. “It rains on us, and we do not always care to get wet. But at least the rain is real. Few of the doings of men are.” Once she would have said that making love would count, but the thought of Rope and Jo together stilled the words on her tongue. She shrugged and glanced at Swallow. ‘“We women have an advantage over you, Seven: I was never as close to the world as when I had the twins.” Swallow nodded.

  The memory of birthing whispered through Brook and she shivered. The unbelievable pain, wave after wave of it. What she most remembered now was the panic-stricken struggle to stay afloat, to remember that each contraction would pass. Battling not to give in, not to drown in craziness and fear and agony. Much like life, really. The trick was to remember that things came in waves. To keep your head above water and know that some day the pain would be over. She thought of her children. The pain would be over and joy would take its place. “That is something very special.”

  “Killing,” Seven said.

  The women looked up, startled. “What?”

  Seven stared down the length of Sage Creek. His eyes were tired, his clothes worn. A very different man, Brook thought, from the dashing warrior she had first glimpsed in Delta many years before. “Killing,” Seven repeated. “The moment you kill someone. At the instant you murder a man you are completely aware, completely part of the real world. The guilt and dread come later, but the moment itself . . .”